


it's nice to be loved (it can never happen too late)

by kagako



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: (some) Internalized Homophobia, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Childhood Crushes Turns Into Old Men Dealing With Having Crushes, Deadlights (IT), Domestic, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, First Time, Fluff, Frottage, Getting Together, Hospitals, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Injury Recovery, Kissing, Light Angst, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Non-Graphic Violence, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-IT Chapter Two (2019), Recovered Memories, Slow Build, Soft Eddie Kaspbrak, Soft Richie Tozier, The Kissing Bridge (IT), adopting a cat, just two old men being in love and being cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-01-07 15:35:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 39,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21219284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kagako/pseuds/kagako
Summary: Richie’s mind fades back, a little at a time, until he register the feel of lips against his own even before he registers the fact that the ground is shaking beneath his back. Hands are on either side of his face—familiar hands, ones he has felt countless times in the past, bigger than before, but the spark was stillthere, Richie stillrememberedthese hands and who they belonged to.Eds is kissing you,the little voice in the back of his mind tells him—and it sounds so much like his younger self, it’s too much all at once.Really planted one on ya, why couldn’t you have done that first, huh? Showed up by little cutie Eddie,and then his younger self snorts and mutters sadly,guess I get why we never did, though.-Eddie saves Richie from the Deadlights, Richie saves Eddie from dying, and what happens after.





	1. tell me to my beating heart, that i know for sure

**Author's Note:**

> hello! I have been working on this fic for like, a little over a month now ever since i first saw it chapter 2 and lets just say i'm in pain, i have a lot of emotions, and i may or may not be referring to richie and eddie EXCLUSIVELY as my dads. i know everyone and their grandma has been writing post it chapter 2 fics but like i'm out here and i'm doing it too!
> 
> this is my longest fic yet. it became so long and out of my own control that i had to section it off into CHAPTERS. this is what happens when i say: "i want eddie to kiss richie to save him from the deadlights and then i want them to adopt a cat and then i want them to fuck" im almost done with it, but i've been sitting on this, writing it for SO LONG that i can't contain myself anymore. i've reread this a million times, no beta because i'm me, and all mistakes are mine, but i'm hoping there are none.
> 
> shoutout to my faves: annie, nami, murph and alyssa for cheering me on and being so supportive of me while i cry and post about this fic.
> 
> i'm not sure if i'm forgetting to mention anything, or any tags at all, but more will definitely be added.  
please enjoy, and thank you for reading!
> 
> fic title: little girl - danger mouse and sparklehouse  
chapter title: i'll be around - the growlers

Richie doesn’t remember his mind fading out.

One minute he was there, screaming at the top of his lungs _(“Truth or dare?! Here’s the truth: you’re a sloppy bitch!”)_, shrill terror coursing through his veins as he came eye to eye with It, and the next he was… nothing. Blank, his mind an empty shell, yet a vision bombarded him over and over again, so much that if it were possible, the sheer force of vomiting would have knocked him out of the trance the Deadlights left him in.

_Eddie rejoiced, his voice high with adrenaline, eyes wide as they seemed to sparkle, even in the darkness of what was basically the center of the World. He patted Richie’s chest, making sure he was whole and breathing, saying over and over,_ we did it, we did it, I saved you, I did it! Rich, you okay? Get up, we gotta g—_and then, a wet, bloody gasp. Something was sticking out of Eddie’s chest, so close to Richie that it scared him, but not as horribly as the sight of light fading from Eddie’s eyes._

Then, the vision rewound itself, over and over.

_Joy, euphoria, hands at his chest, the sound of Eddie’s voice, a sickening crunching, tearing sound, the smell of blood—all over him, all over Eddie, life leaving Eddie’s eyes, the wideness of his smile dropping._

Richie’s mind fades back, a little at a time, until he register the feel of lips against his own even before he registers the fact that the ground is shaking beneath his back. Hands are on either side of his face—familiar hands, ones he has felt countless times in the past, bigger than before, but the spark was still _there,_ Richie still _remembered _these hands and who they belonged to.

_Eds is kissing you,_ the little voice in the back of his mind tells him—and it sounds so much like his younger self, it’s too much all at once. _Really planted one on ya, why couldn’t you have done that first, huh? Showed up by little cutie Eddie, _and then his younger self snorts and mutters sadly, _guess I get why we never did, though._

Richie comes back into the present with a shuddering gasp, just in time to witness Eddie leaning back, eyes full of hope, face etched with worry, until it all smoothes out into happiness. “We did it!” Eddie screams, and it almost hurts Richie’s ears, but he doesn’t dare say anything. “We did it!”

“_I love you_,” is out of Richie’s mouth before he can stop it, right at the same time Eddie screams, “I saved you! I did it!”

Honestly, he doesn’t mean to say it—it slips out, beyond his control, years and years of longing and conflicted emotions finally bursting the more the memories came back to him within such a small span of time. As children, in the quarry; at the clubhouse, tangled together in the hammock—so close, so close, _too close, so warm_; a slumber party at Bill’s, sneaking off when the rest of the Loser’s were sleeping, catching fireflies together in the backyard and marveling at the way the moon seemed so dim, compared to Eds.

“Don’t tell me that again,” Eddie screams, and there is this sinking feeling in the pit of Richie’s stomach before a cruel sense of déjà vu bombards his mind, “until we get out of this hellho—“ Richie cuts him off, apparently gaining the ability to see in slow motion. A new coat of adrenaline weighs on his tongue as he sees It, claw raised, eyes wild and fucking crazy and Richie has this immediate thought of: _oh no you don’t, fucker._

Richie extends his arms, slamming Eddie snug against his body as he rolls away—and yet, it hadn’t been far enough, _quick_ enough.

Eddie yelps in pain, but it isn’t as horrible as the vision, as what Richie had seen in the Deadlights—isn’t as red, isn’t as painful, isn’t as heart crushing. Vaguely, Richie feels tearing at his arm, and he has this strange thought of: _our blood’s gonna mingle together._

For a comedian, he sure could be a romantic, sometimes.

*

They make it out okay—barely safe, but they _made _it.

Eddie’s rushed to the hospital, their main concern being the open, _bleeding_ wound on his back and how he suddenly started freaking out, screaming about how his left arm felt tingly and weird. Richie suffered a gash on his left forearm, and the others were relatively unscathed, if not for the emotional damage and cuts from debris. It was frantic, Loser’s screaming in the middle of the road, calling for help, and it must have been some last wave of influence from It, because _no one _would come, as if the whole side of Derry they were on had mysteriously popped out of existence.

Bev stole a car, hotwiring it, which was _hilarious, _but her driving was _not._ (And don’t get him started on the ride there—blood in the backseat of a stolen car, all over his hands, his lap a pillow for Eds, everyone screaming about the _blood_ and Eddie ranting on and on about how _it’s cool, guys, I could probably live without an arm, or something—) _Though, in reality, Richie couldn’t blame her for the horrible way she drove, even as she pulled up to a hospital half an hour later, slamming on the break, causing most of grown men in the back to _almost _fly through the windshield.

Rushing Eds into the ER was even more frantic—everyone and their god damn mom had been looking at the group with disgust, which, you know, _fair. _They were all pretty dirty, caked with mud and blood and who knows what else. (_Shit and piss, _a voice that sounded too much like a thirteen year old Eddie told him.)

It’s when Richie steps forward mindlessly, about to follow the gurney which Eddie was deposited on, that the Loser’s world seemed to shake.

“I’m sorry, sir, but are you family?”

He could lie _(“I’m his husband—“)_, and then he thinks about the consequences, and there’s his own voice in his head, little Richie Trashmouth Tozier from twenty seven years ago saying, _when the fuck have we ever cared about consequences, jackass? _As much as Richie agreed, he couldn’t do that, not when the consequences might make things worse for Eddie. “N-No, but you gotta understand, he’s—“

_—gonna be so fucking scared waking up all alone, I can’t let him wake up all alone, I need to be there with him, you gotta understand, don’t you fucking understand,_ goes unsaid.

“Then, I’m sorry, but you can’t go back there until visitors are allowed.” The nurse turns on his heel, pushing his way through the doors which Eddie had been taken through.

Richie stands there, a million thoughts running through his mind until Bill comes to stand beside him, his hand a heavy reminder on his shoulder. “C-Come on, Richie.”

“But, Eds, he,_ I_—“

“We know,” Mike murmurs, stepping forward only to place his hand on Richie’s other shoulder. “We know.”

It’s two simple words, repeated, so technically maybe four words, but Richie’s not about to stand there and be too specific about this shit. It’s… simple; the words are so simple, so delicate, so _soft,_ that Richie has to stare down at the dried flakes of nastiness on the hospitals pristine white floor, the same ones that come from him and his fellow Loser’s. Simple words, yet Mike’s tone of voice seemed… _different._

He can’t help but think: _they know, they know._ It was probably more terrifying than It.

After all this time, after all these _years _ of having forgotten everyone, only to come back and see Eddie and get bombarded with love and affection and yearning and hopeless desire—Richie clears his throat, hunching in on himself as if it would make him smaller.

“You… you know,” he manages to squeak out.

He’s being guided out of the hospital now, over asphalt and into soft grass and then he’s being forced down, onto a wooden bench that his mind vaguely tells him must be a part of the hospital where workers and patients can have lunch or simply enjoy the outside, not where a grown gay man can sit down and have his friends comfort him because the guy he’s so fucking stupidly in love with could _die _or lose an _arm_ or _whatever_ the fuck Eddie was going on about. Bill kneels on the grass to his right, Beverly on the left; Mike sits beside him on his right, Ben on his left. It’s warm, comforting, yet Richie can’t help but feel like this might be the end of the world.

Beverly squeezes his knee, always so gentle although he’s sure she deserved the right not to be. “We… saw.”

“S-Saw?” he squeaks, and hates how it sounds.

It’s Ben’s turn to wrap an arm around Richie’s shoulders, to tilt his head and rest his cheek against the top of Richie’s head. “We heard, too.”

“H-Hea—“

“You love him.” Bill says it so effortlessly, so plainly, as if it was something of common knowledge. When Richie focuses his gaze and looks down at Bill, he sees that his eyes are wide and full of something soft, something Richie doesn’t have a word or a joke or a backhanded comment for. He doesn’t stutter, not once, his gaze steady as he looks up at Richie.

Richie isn’t sure how to handle it. He isn’t sure what to do.

“He kissed you,” Mike says, as if to ground Richie. “To get you out from the Deadlights—like Ben did for Bev, remember?”

Richie’s hands become clammy, his eyes wide with fright. Surely, this isn’t happening to him.

Bev snorts, but there is no ill intent there. She leans against Richie’s leg heavily, as if the pressure of her warmth would calm Richie down—and it’s insane, honestly, how much their warmth _does _calm him down. His breathing eases down considerably, and while he does cry what seems like a river, it isn’t as body trembling as he thought it would be.

_They’re here,_ he thinks. _They’re still here._

Richie inhales deeply, squeezing his eyes shut. “I-I… it’s… you guys… I-I’m not… saying you’re wrong. Maybe, uh, I’m, I’m… saying you’re… right.” Richie stumbles through his confession quietly, but he knows it is loud and clear enough for his friends to hear. There is a part of him that is torn between _let them hear _and _they better not hear._

“Always had a feeling,” Ben whispers from above him. _Sap,_ Richie wants to say, but doesn’t.

“You never really h-hid it w-well, when we were kuh—ki—_kids_.” _Oh, finally you start fucking stuttering, virgin?_ is on the tip of Richie’s tongue but again, he doesn’t say anything. Bill’s words clench themselves around his heart, squeezing, reminding him of just how much affection he had always thrown Eddie’s way, even if it was never taken seriously.

It had always been serious, to Richie.

_(“Cute, cute, cute!” Richie chanted, hands pressed against Eddie’s cheeks, squishing them. It wasn’t something new—Eds was _always _cute, but sometimes, the yearning in the depths of Richie’s heart bursted and controlled the motor cortex of his brain. “Cute! Cute! _Cute_!”_

_“S-Stup! Stup it!” Eddie tried to scream, and he tried to look angry, but Richie felt the way his cheeks moved beneath his palms, like he couldn’t help but smile.)_

“At the restaurant, seeing you two together, something… felt so…” Bev sighs and Richie forces himself to listen to her words. Her fingers strum against the back of Richie’s calf soothingly. “It was… weird, like I… for a moment, I really wondered why you two weren’t together, like, _together._ Then, you drank like you wanted to get alcohol poisoning.”

Richie snorts, but finds he can’t deny anything.

“It’s okay,” Bill says steadily, his hand squeezing so hard into Richie’s thigh that he’s sure he will get a hand shaped bruise. “It’s okay.”

“It’s—“ Richie chokes up, a sob shaking his body, and he can only shake his head as if to will his body still. “It’s—fucking, Jesus—it’s—I saw him die in the Deadlights, I fucking saw him _die, _I wouldn’t let him die, couldn’t let him die, I lost him once, you know?” Richie rambles, uncaring of how strung out he sounded, how desperation cracked his voice, making it a pitch higher. “I wasn’t about to fucking lose him again, after all that, twenty seven years of not fucking knowing who the silhouette in my mind was—that’s almost, like, what? Three fucking decades, fucking Christ_—_”

Richie receives pats and pets from all around—Ben soothes the rigidness of his back, Bev rubs his shin, Mike makes circles into the muscle of his bicep and Bill’s got both his hands sandwiched to one of Richie’s.

“But, he’s got a life, he’s got a w_ife_—she’s probably bound to come rolling down the fucking hill come _tomorrow_, and—“

“Richie…” Bev speaks up, paler than before, so it causes Richie to immediately clamp his mouth shut. “Don’t… don’t be so… hard on the whole situation. Eddie, he probably…” she hesitates here, uncertain, but then there is this determination in her eyes that is so much like when they were younger. Bev gets up on her knees, pushing Richie’s legs open so she could settle there, hands reaching up to cup his face so he couldn’t dare look away. “Leaving Derry, it’s easy to forget about overcoming the hardships, because the ones that made the hardships easier weren’t _there_ anymore. Me—I, that is—it’s—m-my… he will soon be my _ex_ husband. He was not… had never been… good to me, like… my f-father, just like him. For Eddie, I’m sure… it’s got to be the same.”

Richie blinks at her rapidly, heart sinking in his chest as bits of memories seep into his brain. Distinctively, he remembers just how disgusted he had always been toward Eddie’s mother—placebos, scaring him with stories of AIDS _(the gay disease, _he’d heard her call it once) and numerous other sicknesses, taking him to the emergency room at every little sniffle_. _Beverly was, of course, right. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t remembered Beverly’s father—the bruises, the fear in her eyes when they (a group of _boys) _were dropping her off at her apartment, the stone expressions that would take over the happy exterior every so often when an older man looked at her funny.

So, Richie simply nods his head and receives a blinding smile in return. Bev is careful of his glasses as she brushes his tears away and it was _so_… He does not have any other words to describe the feeling besides, _warm._

“She’s right,” Ben murmurs, his hand now a steady pressure against the middle of Richie’s back. “And, by the look on your face, it seems like you know she is.”

“Asshole,” Richie bites, and it causes a round of laughter to erupt from their group hug.

They must look absolutely insane, Richie thinks. Dirty, smelly, and all huddled together on some bench in a courtyard of a hospital; Richie’s still got some tears, but he’s laughing, and so are the other Loser’s. He’s surprised no one’s approached them and asked them how they got out of their rooms.

“What should… we do now?” Mike asks, his voice soft, almost sounding like he’s at a loss.

“Get cleaned up,” Ben says.

“Y-Yeah,” Bill nods in agreement, giving Richie’s hand one last squeeze before letting go, but not before Richie squeezes back just at tightly. Bill smiles, all soft around the edges, just like when he was a kid. “M-Maybe get a hotel room somewhere, at least until Eddie is puh—patched up.”

After everyone murmurs words of agreement, they all give Richie one last touch—a pat, a squeeze—before detaching themselves, stretching as they stood up.

Richie sits still for a moment longer, trying to ease his mind of all his worries and thoughts as Bill and Mike huddle side by side, debating on getting a jointed room or not—_yes_ being the ultimate choice. He threads his hands together, fingers between fingers, and kind of wishes it was Eddie’s hand he was holding, and not his own. He remembers it, being a kid and holding Eddie’s hand—that is, when Eddie allowed it. There is a fond smile curving his lips now, because Eddie’s answer had been a yes more often than not, no matter how annoyed his voice had been, no matter how much he rolled his eyes—his answer… was usually _yes._

He has this thought, now—he’s out (kind of, okay, Richie is aware he didn’t exactly _say_ it, but the Loser’s can’t be that dim, right?), his friends know; they _saw, _they _heard. _As terrifying as it had been, as much as Richie had wanted to puke all over his friends, he has to admit that the weight of it all was not on his shoulders anymore.

Maybe, Richie could hold Eddie’s hand next time he saw him, and not feel like his world might shatter along with his joy.

*

Their night consisted of rearranging the jointed rooms they got at some cheap, dingy hotel. Ben and Mike moved a single bed from one room to the other, box springs and all as Bill and Beverly maneuvered the other two beds, taking them off the frames so the box springs and mattresses were on the floor, all three sets level with each other. Maybe it was stupid, and too much work—but after everything they’ve been through, there was this silent agreement that just _maybe_ they didn’t want to be separated.

Richie slept in the middle, sandwiched between Beverly and Bill. Ben slept beside Beverly, and Mike slept beside Bill. It was comforting—so much warmth, not to mention they all smelled better after showering and changing into some cheap, scratchy clothes Mike and Beverly had hastily bought at a small general store down the street as the other’s checked in. They all knew, of course, they should go back to the townhouse and get their shit but for now, half an hour away, on the outskirts… they all decided to just not think about Derry for the time being.

Nightmares were surprisingly scarce. Richie awoke with dreams of blood and Eddie, jolting awake just as Bill and Beverly extended their arms, settling the weight of them across Richie’s stomach, and that was enough. Through some point of the night, each of them had woken with a start—Beverly shouting something intangible, Ben screaming with fright, Bill stuttering _d-don’t touch them, don’t t—touch him, j-j-just a k-kuh-kid—_and Mike shaking so hard he had woken himself up from the clatter of his teeth, it seemed.

Morning came sluggishly, and they all woke up to a note from Mike saying he’s going to the hospital, sorry for not waking everyone, he couldn’t sleep any longer, but they all understood, on some level. Mike had been the one to gather them again, the one who _stayed _and remembered_,_ and the one that had the plan. Richie understood when he thought about it logically _(he wanted to make sure all was right)_, but it didn’t stop him from being a little bit pissed off.

He wanted to be the _first _to see Eds awake and kicking—yes, Richie was allowing himself to be that selfish.

Apparently, it had been a good thing, because only _one_ of the Loser’s witnessed Shit Hitting The Fan. Oh, yeah, that had to be _All_ Capitalized.

The common hotel landline in the room rings loudly, causing the Loser’s to jump in surprise.

It’s Mike calling (from a passerby’s cellphone, they later learn), and there is commotion in the background, what sounds like a nurse and a woman going back and forth, and Richie hears Eddie’s name from a booming voice, and makes the connection slowly that, _oh, she sure fucking came rolling down the hill real quick, huh._ “He’s asking for you,” Mike tells him, his voice soft yet hard at the same time, and it throws Richie for a loop.

At Richie’s stunned expression, his jaw almost dropping to the floor, all the other three Loser’s in the room huddle around him, trying to get an earful of what’s happening on the other end of the line—and of course it happens just as they hear Eddie scream, _“where the fuck is Richie?!”_

Beverly takes the phone from him, snatching it right out of his hand before Richie has a chance to react. Her voice is high with delight, eyes shining the way they do as she screams, “He’s on his way, Mike! Hang tight, Eddie!”

“Wait, what about us?!” Ben screams, but it is playful and without heat.

“Only Richie! I said so!” Bev yells right back, shoving Richie out of the way to slam the phone on the cradle.

Bill pushes Richie toward the bathroom, muttering about how badly he needs to comb his hair and wash his face, and maybe shave but _there is no time for that, Richie, so don’t even try to keep Eddie waiting just because you’re a fucking shy virgin_—and Richie honest to god _laughs _when there is no stuttering_,_ a different kind of adrenaline coursing through his veins as cleans up, for what it’s worth.

He emerges from the bathroom, his face clean, his hair combed, and his bladder empty. His plain purple shirt may be wrinkled with sleep, and the sweats may be cheap and itchy, but Richie does a dramatic twirl regardless. “How do I look?”

“Better than Ben,” Beverly tells him.

“You really got me beat,” Ben agrees, while Bill’s smile widens.

“Good, because honestly I feel like I’m gonna fucking _vomit_.”

Beverly steps forward immediately, hands cupping Richie’s cheeks, her thumbs grazing his skin gently. “It’s okay to be nervous,” she tells him, and there is this weird air about her that compels Richie to _breathe _and not be an idiot for a solid fifty two seconds_._ “But, it’s just Eddie, you know?”

“It’s… just Eddie,” Richie repeats her words, a vague sense of familiarity about them.

_(He’s thirteen and stupid and hopelessly drowning in his feelings when he tells Beverly Marsh all in one breath._

_Probably shouldn’t be something you drop on someone, especially considering the shit they’ve went through, but—_

_“It’s just Eddie, you know,” Bev told him, her mouth twisted a bit like she didn’t want to laugh._

_Richie glared at her, but his heart pounded and pounded no matter how even he kept his breathing. He pushed himself up from the bench they were seated at, shaking his head like he could make the whole situation go away. _Stupid,_ he thinks, blood turning cold because he could have sworn that huge ass statue was staring straight at him, straight through him, could possibly even read his fucking mind. “Why did I tell you. Fuck, God, Jesus, why did I tell you.”_

_“Hey, hey, Trashmouth, chill out,” Bev was quick to reassure him, throwing the remainder of her cigarette somewhere to the right before scrambling after him. She matched Richie’s strides easily, couldn’t help but smile because of it. “There’s nothing wrong with it, you know. Eddie, he—“_

_“Don’t say it, Bev,” Richie pleaded, coming to a stop abruptly—so abruptly she almost runs into him. “Stan, he—the fucker said the same thing!”_

_“Oh, so I’m not the only one who knows?” Bev wanted to tease him, desperately, but thought better of it. Richie looked close to fainting, or maybe dying spontaneously._

_“Stan, he—he…well, he figured it out.” Richie shrugged as blood rushed to his face. “He cornered me. I wasn’t expecting it—remember when he sprained his wrist a month ago?” When Beverly nodded, Richie continued, “It’s because I pushed him. Down that hill, close to the clubhouse. I-I mean, I meant to, but I didn’t, I didn’t think we were that close to the hill, and, uh…” Richie swallowed his words and shut up._

_Beverly looked shocked before schooling her expression, clearing her throat as the pieces of the puzzle slowly but surely began to come together in front of her. “Why did you tell me?” Beverly asked, and when Richie looked over to her, she just looked so genuinely curious that Richie couldn’t even be an ass about it._

_Again, Richie shrugged. His palms were sweaty. “I just… I don’t know why, really. Fuck. God. I’m fucking stupid. I’m gonna fucking vomit, Bev.”_

_“_Don’t,”_ Beverly stressed the word, shaking her head, gripping his shoulders tightly. Her expression is full of nothing but patience, her voice nothing but soft, and her eyes full of nothing but fondness. “Why don’t you tell him? It’s just Eddie, Richie.”_

_“It’s just Eddie,” he said, raising the pitch of his voice so he could mimic her. Richie understood where she was coming from—he shouldn’t be afraid, not really, but life never gave Richie Tozier a break, and the boy himself knew that better than anyone, so of course he was going to be so fucking afraid, felt as though he should feel _nothing_ but fear. “You know, that might be the whole reason_ why_ I feel like vomiting.”)_

Ben comes up beside Beverly, raising a hand to rest it on Richie’s shoulder just as Bill comes up on Bev’s other side. The movement causes Richie to hurdle back into the present, blinking rapidly, the memory a thick haze in his mind.

Richie stares straight at Beverly and thinks, _she’s always known, _and when he finds that she’s staring right back, her eyes wide as saucers, Richie can’t help but feel like they just remembered the same thing.

He’s still staring right at her as he says word for word, “It’s just Eddie. You know, that might be the whole reason _why_ I feel like vomiting,” and Beverly is still staring right at Richie as she mouths the words right back at him.

“You can tell h-him again, now.”

Richie jerks his head to Bill, tearing his eyes away from Beverly. “What?”

Ben hums, narrowing his eyes in thought. “I’m not… exactly sure… but I’m guessing Eddie was trying to say, ‘don’t tell me that again until we get out of this hellhole.’”

“Oh,” Richie says, nervous laughter following suit. He kind of forgot all of them had heard his confession.

“Don’t do that,” Beverly tells him, her smile nothing but sweet. She releases his face from her hands, taking his own in hers, now. Bev squeezes his hands, giddy with excitement. The memory that came back to her was precious, she thought, and she couldn’t help the tenderness that swelled in her chest. She _knew. _All this time, she’s _known,_ she’s been _aware_ of it; it’s no wonder she had felt so confused back at the restaurant. “We’re all happy for you. We’re all so proud of you. There is no reason to hide, Richie, we all love you _so _much and not just for your trashy ass mouth.”

Richie swallows, blinking rapidly against the dryness of his eyes as he huffs out a laugh. He could always leave it to Beverly to end something so heartwarming and serious with a joke. It was like all of them had never been apart.

“You’ve got this, Richie,” Ben assures hikm, taking Beverly and Richie’s hands in his own huge ones. “It’s… all been slowly coming back, you know, the memories… as kids, even more so now with It gone.”

“L—Looking back at it all…” Bill starts, copying their gestures. He, too, sets his hands in there, right atop Ben’s. “I wonder why I never c-connected the dots. Or, maybe I did, and just… you know… didn’t think anything of it.” Then, Bill laughs, and it seeps into his voice as he says, “You and Eddie, you guys were always… like a _constant_ in the universe.”

Ben nods along with Bill while Beverly gives Richie a knowing smile, her eyes gentle.

“All of you guys are fucking saps and I hate each and every one of you,” Richie says, and he’s thankful when they choose to completely ignore the way his voice cracks.

*

Richie passes by Mike on his way there, but Mike gives up no information to him besides for the room number.

“Hey, isn’t there _anything_ I should know before I possibly get my head snapped the fuck off?” Richie calls after him, confused. The hospital was in plain sight now, seeming to loom over the entire world, and he wonders if Eddie’s able to look out the window, wonders if Eddie sees him coming.

“No,” Mike calls back, throwing his hands up just to show Richie how much more tellings he has. “Eddie will fill you in, I’m sure.”

There’s something about the way he says it—knowing, a tilt in his voice that is just edging on teasing.

Richie calls him an asshole and picks up the pace, kind of hating Mike for sneaking off earlier that morning.

It doesn’t take him long to reach the entrance, and he doesn’t even stop at the nurse’s station, turning left and going up the stairs to the second floor, eyes frantically searching for room number 185.

Fortunately—unfortunately?—it doesn’t take him long to find it.

“Fuck.” Richie stands there, heart pounding in his chest, and he wonders if it’s going to burst through and kill him. He snorts, thinking, _that would sure fucking suck._ Richie takes a deep breath, squeezing his eyes shut as he braces himself. “You can do this, Trashmouth,” he tells himself quietly, hand on the doorknob, “it’s just Eddie—the same cute little Eds from before, with the million miles per minute mouth and the cutest cheeks ever.”

From behind the door, there’s a voice: “Are you going to stand there mumbling all god damn morning or are you going to come in, dumbass?”

Richie feels light on his feet as he twists the doorknob, stumbling through the opening.

Eddie sits there, bundled up on the bed in the middle of the room, his hair a greasy mess and his cheek bandaged up, but he is _alive _and relatively clean_._ He’s whole, his complexion looks a million times better than it had been down there in the center of the World, and _fuck,_ Richie thinks, eyes wide as he takes in everything that Eddie is, _I love him._

“Is that a phone in your pocket, or are you happy to see me?” Eddie jokes.

In spite of himself, Richie takes a quick glance downward—wouldn’t really put it past himself to pop a boner at the sight of Eds being alive.

“You—“ Richie gasps.

“_You,”_ Eddie interrupts, and Richie wonders how he got so ballsy, and then remembers they all killed a fucking demonic, ugly clown together. “Are you going to get your ass over here? Please, Rich, don’t make me get out of this hospital bed.”

Immediately, Richie steps forward, closing the door behind him. He drags his feet, heart pounding a mile a minute because he really wasn’t sure how to handle this situation. With a joke? Eds deserved better than that, and truthfully, Richie hates that he feels like he’s just _gotta_ be honest with himself and what his heart wants, what his hands itch to hold, because he had suppressed it so damningly as a kid, forgot it all after he left Derry, and then it hit him like a ton of bricks like, what? A week ago? Three days ago? An hour ago? Richie has no clue what day it was, even, nor the amount of time that had passed.

All Richie knows is that he loves Eddie. He remembers his younger self, and knows that he owes it to him, the little lanky kid from twenty seven years ago, to be _honest_ now, in the present.

In the midst of his own thoughts, Richie finds himself at Eddie’s bedside.

“What’s wrong with you, Richie? Pull up a chair. I don’t bite,” Eddie tells him, and then hums as if he’s reconsidering. He opens his mouth, then shuts it immediately, looking pointedly at his hands, his eyes wide.

Richie’s breath leaves him all in one go, a robotic _ha ha ha _escaping his lips as he does as he’s told—strange, you’d think he’d mess with Eds a bit more, but here he is listening to him. Richie keeps his gaze downward as he pulls up a chair, plopping his ass down before scooting forward, as close as his knees would allow.

“Are you okay?”

“Huh?” Richie mutters, brows pulling together as he finally looks up.

“Are you okay?” Eddie repeats, and there is no annoyance in his voice, not even an eye roll or an exasperated sigh. He furrows his brow as if trying to conjure up a memory. “You had… you got cut on your arm, didn’t you?”

“That doesn’t matter, Eds,” Richie tells him hurriedly, throat going dry. He leans forward, says, “what about you—“

“That doesn’t matter, Richie,” Eddie sighs.

“What the fuck?” Richie gapes at him. “Yeah, it does.”

“Oh, yeah? Right back at you, fuckwit.”

Richie swallows his words automatically, heart racing because—well, _Eds._ He tries not to make a face as he tugs his sleeve up, doesn’t even flinch when it rubs against the barely scabbed over gash in his arm. Richie doesn’t really mind it—it hadn’t really hurt due to the adrenaline and he was more than happy, because he had been able to protect Eddie, in a way.

If his arm hadn’t been around him—wouldn’t Eddie’s back have gotten it even worse? Though, at the huff of breath that leaves Eddie’s mouth, it seems he doesn’t think the same way as Richie had.

“Sorry,” Eddie says, voice tight.

“What? Don’t be fucking stupid,” Richie says immediately, shaking his head. He wants to reach out, to touch, to comfort, but cowardice is what he ate for breakfast, it is all he can taste on his tongue. “Besides, if I get a cool ass scar from this, who am I to fucking complain?”

“Dumbass,” Eddie says, but he does what Richie hadn’t, and reaches out. Richie’s skin is hot against his fingertips, seeming to burn under the wake of his touch. Eddie skims his index finger over the cut, gaze flicking upward to gauge Richie’s reaction, and he definitely knows why he feels disappointed when no reaction comes. For a fleeting moment, Eddie thinks about curling his finger a bit, scraping his nail against the forming scabs, making Richie bleed so the blood would drop on his sheets, so even when (if) Richie left, he would still _be_ there, right next to Eddie.

The thought kind of startles him.

“Eds?”

Eddie clears his throat, ignoring the heat he feels creeping up the back of his neck and says, “Don’t call me that. Is there stuff in here I can use?”

Richie looks at him warily, tilting his head.

“To patch you up,” Eddie says, as if it were such an obvious answer.

“Eds, it’s okay—it doesn’t hurt at all, and…“ _if you touch me anymore, I might really fucking blow up,_ “...I should be taking care of you, really,” Richie finishes lamely.

“You’re stupid. Stop being stupid and just get me shit I can work with.” Eddie is reluctant to let go, but he does, pointing to the little stand by his bed where a single yellow flower soaks in a vase. “Is there anything down there?” He gestures to the slim door in the corner of the room. “In the closet?”

Richie finds nothing in the drawer of the stand, so he gets up, grumbling under his breath about Eddie playing _nurse_, acting annoyed even though his heart hammered in his chest, his mind reeling and Richie honestly wasn’t sure if this was something he should be doing. Wasn’t this, like, dangerous? He rummages through the closet, taking his sweet time, pretending he doesn’t feel Eddie’s stare on him as his mind goes on and on, a mile a minute. Richie could feel it, in his chest—warmth, familiarity, tenderness, things he had only vaguely felt in his dreams during those twenty seven years, waking up from a familiar silhouette reaching out to him, calling him: Eddie, from when they were kids, his mind tells him, and it seems so simple _now,_ to place those pieces together.

Richie finds that he hates, with a passion, the time where he was forced to forget, the time it was all taken from him.

_Idiot,_ he thinks to himself. Richie figured he’d be too old for this, these feelings, the tightness in his chest, the thrill that shot up his spine at any given moment in which Eddie exhaled, in which Eddie _inhaled._ It’s all come back so fast, giving him whiplash. He wills his hands to not shake as he plucks what Eds needs from the closet—gauze, ointment, antiseptic, cotton balls, medical tape.

Richie drops it all on the bed, making a show of it as he sits down again, but there is the tiniest of smiles curving on Eddie’s lips.

“Give me your hand.”

“Eds, you haven’t even taken me out to _dinner_ yet,” Richie says dramatically, and then his stomach drops almost immediately, because he hadn’t meant for that to come out—a joke, _a joke,_ Eds deserved better, he hadn’t meant to flaunt a single joke in this hospital room. _Too late now,_ he thinks, then bats his eyelashes, acting bashful as he slowly extends his hand. “But, if it’s you…”

“Jackass,” Eddie laughs, and maybe Richie’s reading too far into it. He could swear there is the lightest shade of red on Eddie’s face, but as Eddie reaches out and is nothing but gentle with him, Richie finds that he cannot focus on anything but the feel of Eddie’s hands on him.

It’s silent, for a while. Richie’s closer now, got his arm draped across Eddie’s lap as the guy hunches over and works on cleaning his wound. It’s not as boring as it should have been, Richie notices, and can’t help but think that it is just because he’s here with _Eddie._ “Duh,” he says aloud, wincing because he had startled Eddie, causing Eddie’s hands to jerk, the cotton ball pressing roughly into the wound on Richie’s arm.

“S-Shit, sorry, Rich, you just—you startled me, sorry,” Eddie rambles, worry flooding his chest at the sight of Richie wincing.

“No, Eds, my bad,” Richie soothes him with a laugh, his smile easy and light, and something about it makes Eddie feel like he’s thirteen again.

_(The hammock probably shouldn’t be subjected to their weight, Eddie thought._

_And yet, that didn’t stop him from climbing in as if he belonged there, opposite of Richie, their legs a tangled mess. Richie doesn’t stop him, doesn’t even react in any way as the hammock sways and dips, eyes totally focused on the comic in his hands, and Eddie felt a bit disappointed._

_He expected Richie to roll his eyes, to give him a glare, to raise his hands and try to stop him, but he didn’t._

_So, Eddie stayed there and tried to be sly in the way he stared. Richie’s hands, the mop of his hair, his huge glasses that looked kinda dorky but incredibly adorable, and Eddie looked away at that moment, couldn’t believe the fondness that only grew stronger in his chest._

_“Let me get a turn,” Eddie said then, his voice not as steady as he’d like it to be._

_“What the fuck? No, Eds, I’m at a good part,” Richie said, and to prove his point, he turned the page and shook the comic out like old men did newspapers._

_“Don’t call me that, asshole!”_

_“What the fuck? No, Eddie my love, I’m at a good part.”_

_“N-Not that, either! You fucking fuckwit—“ Eddie scrambled forward, snatching the comic right from Richie’s hands, and there is yet again another wave of disappointment, but it doesn’t last long, because Richie started laughing, and it seemed so loud, bouncing off the walls and beams of the clubhouse._

_Richie makes a show of getting more comfortable even if Eddie was now (not) focused on the comic. “You’re lucky I love you, Eddie Spaghetti.”_

_“Just _Eddie _is fine,” Eddie said, and he is surprised he gets the words out at Richie’s own words._

_Richie snorted, but said nothing more._

_Silence was strange, sometimes—comforting, but with Richie, sometimes it was just… weird, like Richie was _Up_ to something. It tickled at the back of Eddie’s neck, causing the fine hairs all over his body to stand on end as he reread the same speech bubble, over and over, his eyes unfocused on the blotches of colors on the page._

_It’s then Eddie felt something at the back of his knee._

_He screamed, flailing, legs kicking, and Eddie realized—_

_“Richie! Fuck, shit, Richie are you okay? I didn’t mean to kick you!” Eddie gasped, throwing the comic to the side as he sat upright, as much as the hammock would allow. He extends his hands to Richie, who is hunched over, hands covering his mouth, shoulders shaking—and there is fear, there is hurt, there is guilt, even after Eddie realized that Richie is not crying, but _laughing_._

_“I’m fine,” Richie said, straightening from his hunch. He moved his hands, running his tongue over the cut on his lip, skin going white hot when he realized Eddie had followed the movement. “It’s—“ he stopped, extending a hand, wiggling his fingers under Eddie’s knee, and flushes at the way Eddie jumped and gasped, giggles caught in his throat. “It’s just, I don’t know, I didn’t think you’d be ticklish, Eds.”_

_“S-Shit, sorry, Rich, you just—you startled me, sorry, I thought it was a spider or something, I’m _sorry_—“_

_“No, Eds,” Richie insisted, and even with a cut on his lip, blood smeared on the pink of it and on his chin, a little, his smile caused fireworks to go off in the pit of Eddie’s stomach. “My bad.”)_

“Eds?”

“Uh—“ Eddie shakes his head, brows furrowed as he blinks rapidly. He’s got the cotton ball in his hand, his other at Richie’s elbow to keep him from fidgeting, and he only then realizes he had zoned out, too engrossed in his own memory. Eddie coughs, and then laughs a little, setting the cotton ball on the little stand by the bed. He picks up the ointment next, squeezing some of it onto his finger and then proceeds to apply it to the cut on Richie’s arm. “Sorry, I just, uh, had a… I remembered something.”

Richie hums, but doesn’t press, which kind of disappoints Eddie, but he’s fully aware he could just—you know, simply speak up, but there is this inkling feeling, a part of the memory he forgot that hasn’t come back yet, that is just gnawing at the back of his mind, and he isn’t sure. Eddie just—he isn’t sure. He’s sure what happened after that had happened, but he can’t be one hundred percent sure, because it could just be _him_ filling in his own memories with what he _wanted_ to happen.

Stupidly, Eddie says, “I told Myra we’re getting a divorce.”

Those were not the words he wanted to say, but how could he just ask Richie—

_(“You know, Eds, I don’t have anyone to kiss my boo boo—“_

_“What? Shut the fuck up!” Eddie’s gaze fell immediately to Richie’s lips, though, his brain not even processing the fact that Richie Tozier did not tell a your mom joke._

_“—so, why don’t you gimmie one?”)_

—if they had kissed more than once?

Eddie felt much like a fool, which he hated feeling like, because it felt _too_ much like being a kid with a crush again. Even if they had kissed as kids, it wasn’t as if Eddie hadn’t just kissed Richie, back in the sewers. And it’s then it all comes back to him—_I kissed my childhood crush to save him from a fucking alien clown._

He pauses for a millisecond, and he may be having a bit of a moment of full on internal panic, but then Eddie calls himself an idiot, tells himself he’s not a teenager anymore, and then immediately his choice of word comes back to him: _crush. _

Butterflies seem to waken in his stomach, and suddenly he is far too conscious of the proximity between his body and Richie’s, even though they aren’t even all that close at all. The air feels thin, the room seems brighter, and when Eddie glances at Richie out of the corner of his eye, he can’t help but feel a tug in his chest, thinking,_ ah, that’s right._

He had suspected, of course, upon seeing Richie for the first time in almost thirty years, but now he just feels so stupid because there had been _nothing_ to fucking suspect.

_(“He looks familiar…” The words slipped out of Eddie’s mouth before he could stop them. He had stopped channel surfing, going _back _to the comedy channel because that face, those glasses, that smile, the wheeze at the end of his laugh—it had all seemed too familiar to Eddie._

_Myra turned to him, her nose scrunched up before she proceeded to focus on sorting through pills again, dropping them in designated days. “I don’t see why,” she said, tight lipped, “You don’t even like comedy, Eddie bear.”_

_Eddie shifts on the sofa uncomfortably, brows furrowed together, but he doesn’t say anything because he simply doesn’t have anything to say to her. There are things he lets happen, because going through the motions were easy, a routine, something he was used to—but this… it was different, Eddie decided silently._

Richie Tozier: Extraordinarily Vile.

_He memorized the man’s name and the name of the special on the corner of the screen before changing the channel. Eddie could not get the feeling out of his chest—breathless and strangely giddy all at the same time. It was familiar, and made him feel like… something he had never felt before, with Myra._

_Eddie wondered why it was so familiar. Just where had he felt this before?_

_Later that night, when he looked through compilations on YouTube, the feeling only grew stronger.)_

Richie looks at him, the corners of his lips twitching as he fights off laughter. “Uh, that’s what you remembered? That you asked for a divorce?”

Eddie blinks back into reality, back tracking. “What? No,” Eddie says, finished with spreading the ointment. He wipes his finger with another cotton ball, picking up the gauze and unraveling it a bit before saying, “those things were unrelated.”

“Oh, of _course_,” Richie agrees, and helps Eddie as he begins to wrap the gauze around his arm, lifting it accordingly as one of Eddie’s hands comes to rest on his wrist. “A divorce…huh.”

“Yes.” Eddie nods, and suddenly his throat is so dry he feels like even a whole gallon of water would not do anything for him. “I just—“ he shrugs, smoothing over the gauze, making sure there are no bumps with his right hand, but in the back of his mind he wonders how much of this was just an excuse to touch Richie, for all the times he could not, for all the times he had wanted to. He’s got one hand on Richie’s wrist, the other at his forearm, and it’s… it feels like electricity, Eddie thinks, a steady, sparkling buzz that seemed to seep into his fingertips. “—just, you know, it wasn’t, uhm, a good marriage, she’s basically my mother, I mean, _really_ just like her.” He laughs here, something short and dry that isn’t even really a laugh at all, and Richie knew it, keeping his gaze focused on his task. “I called her _ma_ on more than one occasion, and please, Rich, no, it _wasn’t_ in bed, we didn’t even have sex that much, I can count it half a hand, and, and—oh, uh, I—“ he sputters to a stop, blinking rapidly.

Richie doesn’t laugh at him, though. He lifts a hand, not an ounce of hesitation as he sets it atop Eddie’s, the one that rests at Richie’s forearm. There’s a smile on his face as he looks up at Eddie—small, but it is unguarded and _true,_ and Eddie knows this because Richie’s eyes crinkle at the edges, just a bit. “Told ya, Eds,” Richie hums, and it takes Eddie a moment to realize that the guy looks _proud._ “You’re braver than you think. Always have been.”

Eddie sucks in a breath, eyes wide, and he doesn’t realize he had inched closer to Richie’s face until he _catches_ himself doing it, has to force himself to stop and inch back a bit, _because… _

“That…” Eddie can feel the way his heart squeezes, like a snake slipped its way into his torso, taking hold of his heart. Through this emotion, right now, Eddie barely feels the pain of the sutures in his back—the itchiness, the uncomfortable stretch of skin. Richie’s hand feels good against his own, so much like what he remembered—big, warm, rougher than before because of age, but it is _still_ Richie.

_(“Eds, Eds! Hold my hand!” Richie screamed, shuffling his feet against the sidewalk._

_“What in the hell are you doing,” Eddie sighed. He watched as Richie wobbled along, patches of ice still thick on the sidewalk. “Are you trying to be funny, or are you serious?”_

_“Serious! As serious as my relationship with your mother!” Richie told him, eyes seeming to bulge out from behind his glasses. He tried to center his gravity, like Mike and Stanley showed him how, but his limbs were too lanky, his coordination still shit because he just kept _growing._ All limbs and no brains, as Eddie would say. “I can’t do this!”_

_Eddie sighed dramatically, snatching one of Richie’s hands in his own. Eddie clasped their hands together tightly, tight enough that their knuckles seemed to creak in protest. “You can, dumbass,” Eddie said, rolling his eyes. He started to walk slowly, not once slipping on the ice, perhaps too focused on how big Richie’s hand was, compared to his own. “Don’t take such huge strides; it won’t help you at all.”_

_Richie squeezed Eddie hands as they walked. He squeezes Eddie’s hand every time his stomach dropped with the motions of slipping._

_“Think of it like this,” Eddie said then, his smile wide and his eyes bright, but his voice was all serious, all business. Richie felt his stomach drop for a completely different reason. “You’re handling _precious _cargo,” here, Eddie lifted their clasped hands, controlling his gaze expertly, so he didn’t wind up just _staring _at their hands, “so you can’t fall, or else you’ll take me with you.”_

_Richie mouthed the words: _precious cargo.

_After that, Richie hadn’t slipped once, but the tight hold on his hand remained._

_The meaning didn’t quite fly over Eddie’s head.)_

“I—“ Eddie laughs, breathless, his brows pulling together because—“If, you know… If I was as brave as you’ve said, then I…” He takes a deep breath, shaking his head, and he almost backs out, but there’s Richie’s hand—atop his, a constant, reassuring weight. This was no time to back away; it was not time to _run_ away. Eddie had ran away enough, as a kid—in the clubhouse, right across from Richie and his stupid fluffy hair and his stupid dorky smile; at the quarry, one of the only times Eddie had ever seen Richie without his glasses, basking in the sun; at slumber parties, sleeping right beside Richie in the makeshift fort in Bill’s living room, watching the rise and fall of his chest, feeling the warmth of him so close, fingers itching to just touch his _wrist_, where his pulse lied.

Now, though, Eddie’s able to do that—or, it is more like, he allows himself to do so.

So, he doesn’t back away. Eddie is full of emotion—affection, _love; _he feels warm, like he’s right at home, next to Richie. He wants. He’s shaking with it, can feel it seep into the very marrow of his bones—it’s intense, this desire to touch and look and _give _alongside the innocent love that budded as a kid.

Eddie glances at him, a strange nervousness in his bones, because this _was_ Richie. Richie’s voice rings out in his mind, over and over, a desperate, barely there, choked whisper of _I love you. _Eddie clears his throat, adjusting his hold slowly so the pads of his fingers are able to settle against the vulnerable skin of Richie’s wrist.

“Eds?” Richie whispers. He sounds as shaken up as Eddie feels.

“If I was… _always _as brave as you’ve said…” Eddie mumbles, fingertips making circles on Richie’s wrist, “I—I would have told you that I love you first.”

Richie lets out a breath, and Eddie looks at him, greeted by a soft expression—_embarrassed, _Eddie’s mind supplies, and then he forms the coherent thought: _he’s embarrassed._ “I mean, we can’t do anything about that,” Richie mumbles, his voice the tiniest bit shaky. He lifts his other hand, touching the same fingers that Eddie was making circles on his wrist with, fingertips against the knobs of his knuckles. “It’s not a matter of… of if you were brave enough or not. I kinda told you first, Eds, _I_ beat you to it, so you’re shit outta luck.”

In spite of himself, Eddie _laughs._ He laughs and he laughs, snorting a bit, causing Richie to soften even further. “A-Asshole—“ Eddie gasps, laughter and giggles that should probably not be coming out of his mouth at his age spilling out. He covers his mouth with the back of his free hand, his other still occupied at Richie’s wrist, with Richie’s fingers. “That’s—god, Rich, shut the _fuck_ up, can’t you be serious for once?”

“My ten minutes of seriousness is over,” Richie tells him, completely serious, but his voice shakes.

“I’m being serious,” Eddie tells him, and _no,_ he is _not _pouting, not at his age. “It’s—I—about _you,_ it’s…” Eddie goes quiet, and surely, at this _age,_ this shyness would be nothing. And yet, it is a force to be reckoned with. “It’s…you.” The words are heavy on his tongue, but the fact they weigh so much surely meant that they rung all the more true. Eddie lifts his head, tilting his head the tiniest bit to catch Richie’s gaze. “It’s you, Richie,” Eddie says.

When the words leave his mouth, he feels like a kid again, tongue tied. Eddie remembered being speechless, too nervous to rant about anything that came to his mind—when it was _just_ them, when Richie had sang _Eddie my love_ in an off key note—he feels like a _kid_ because Richie has always made him feel so… free, so ageless.

Twenty seven years of it, gone, and Eddie is kind of bitter about it.

Richie’s gaze is steady, and the next thing that happens is so out of their element, or maybe not so much at all. Richie takes Eddie’s hand and leans forward to press his palm against his chest, right over Richie’s heart, and—“ah,” a breath escapes Eddie easily, the corners of his lips tugging upward in a smile.

Richie’s heart beats so frantically that Eddie is surprised the room isn’t shaking with the force of it.

“Stupid,” Eddie mutters, but his voice is fond, and he is a liar as he says, “I don’t want to feel that.” He doesn’t move his hand at all. He is content with _leaving_ it there, feeling the beat of Richie’s heart against the palm of his hand.

“Me too, Eds,” Richie says quietly, pressing Eddie’s hand even firmer against his sternum. He’s got his head inclined a bit, eyes on Eddie’s hand and his own right over Eddie’s. It softens him, embarrassingly so. “Me too, Eds. It’s you.”

It’s thrilling, exhilarating. He hadn’t known these feelings could still spark up in his chest after all this time, after all they’ve been through—and at a quick glance to Richie’s face, Eddie could tell it was the same for him.

For a fleeting moment, it feels like the two of them could catch fire, right in the middle of the hospital room.


	2. is it too much to dream, that we can forever be

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please enjoy!
> 
> chapter title: rare hearts - the growlers

They don’t really talk about it.

It’s there, an invisible force around them, alive with the pulse of their own heartbeats. They _know_—it’s there when they glance at each other, when they catch one another staring; when Richie walks backwards in the hospital hallway with what looks so much like a loving, encouraging smile, and Eddie shuffles forward, little by little, muttering curses under his breath because he is _not_ weak, he is _not _fragile, and he _will_ walk down the hallway on his _own_ two feet (and the help of the IV pole, but that’s not the point) God damn it all, especially if Richie keeps _smiling_ at him like that.

And it’s still there, even when the other Loser’s crowd around his hospital bed, talking about this and that, what they will bring Eddie to eat that night because _no, Eddie, you aren’t eating this God awful hospital food any longer,_ even when they start talking about what new roads await them.

Eddie goes, perhaps too predictably, still.

Mike’s talking about Florida and the ocean and cleaning the beaches when Beverly delivers an elbow to his side, shutting him up effectively. “Eddie?” she murmurs, so quiet, so sweet, like she already knows—which, Eddie figures they all must already know. Mike had been unlucky enough to arrive shortly after Myra had bustled in, red faced and sleep deprived from the plane.

_(The first thing Eddie does is slip the ring off his finger and offer it to Myra. “That divorce you wanted? The one you said we’d get if I left for Derry?” Eddie reminded her gently, but he knew above all else that it didn’t matter if he were gentle or not. She would twist his words and his tone to better suit her. Still, Eddie kept his voice calm and even. “Count me in.”_

_“What in the world…I wasn’t—that’s not…! How could you say that to my face, Eddie bear?! There is no way this is happening, what is _wrong _with you?!” She knocked the gold band out of his hand and sent it flying toward the other side of the room. Eddie didn’t bother to look where it landed, and she rounded on him, huffing. “You know how fragile you are, what are you to do? You know I wasn’t serious! There is no one who will take care of you like me—“_

_“Eddie…?” Mike stopped in the doorway, looking much like a deer in headlights, looking _much _like he was regretting coming to the hospital._

_“Who is this?” Myra sputtered, nose scrunched up in disgust. “Who is this, Eddie bear?”_

_“Mike! Get a fucking nurse or something! Where the hell is Richie?” he rambled, sweat dripping down his temples. Eddie felt a wave of panic wash over him, but _no,_ he had to keep it calm. Myra kept screaming, going on and on about that crooked comedian, and how strange it was that these so called friends happened to show up right when he had gotten that bonus at work, and how they weren’t getting a divorce, over her dead body, and _Eddie bear, we are married! I take care of you!

_Finally, Eddie snapped. He wanted to keep his cool, he wanted to be level headed and in control, but the more Myra’s high pitched voice assaulted his ears, Eddie couldn’t contain himself nor the frustrated that had bubbled up. “Myra, I’m sorry, but you really need to leave!”_

_“E-Excuse me?!”_

_The shock on her face was so _fake,_ Mike thought, and he’s still frozen on the spot when Eddie went on: “We’re getting a divorce! Myra, get that look off your face, I swear to _God _it’s not going to work on me, not anymore. Leave! A lawyer will be in contact, I-I don’t know when, but—but, one will be! I’m tired of this! Leave! The only thing I’m _sick _of right now is you! Please. Leave! We’ll talk when I’m n-not so _angry!_”_

_Mike hadn’t needed to get a nurse—several are right there, bustling in the room at all the commotion. Some are right by Eddie’s side, checking over his wounds and vitals; the others are crowding around Myra, their voices soft but hard: _ma’am you need to leave, the patient has asked you to leave, ma’am, so if you would please leave the building_. She’s still screaming and getting escorted away when Mike asks a nearby nurse if they had a phone to lend him, _I’ve got friends I need to call, friends that care and want to know he’s awake, please_, hands shaking as he searched up the name of the hotel and pressed _CALL.

_“He’s asking for you,” Mike said, right when Richie answered the phone_ _after a lady at the front desk transferred him._

_“Uh?”_

_“Eddie bear—?!”_

_“Ma’am, you need to leave—“_

_“Do not fucking call me that! _Where the fuck is Richie?!”)

“Eds?” Richie’s voice is soft, making the memory fade quickly.

“I-I’m okay, guys.” Eddie shakes his head. He smiles, but it’s all nerves. “Sorry. Florida? That sounds nice.”

Beverly steps closer, her gaze flicking between Richie and Eddie, and Eddie can’t help the feeling that they all already know _that,_ too. Maybe it was how Eddie was settled basically right at the edge of the bed, closest to Richie, and maybe it was how Richie’s arm was pressed right against Eddie’s thigh, always touching.

Maybe it was all the memories that came flooding back from their childhood.

Maybe it was the way they weren’t even trying to hide it.

_Why bother?_ Eddie had thought, for the first time in his life.

“Eddie, are you… alright?” she asks.

Eddie shrugs, and he can feel panic settle thick in his chest as he opens his mouth: “It’s, you know—you all know, right?” After he sweeps a look around the room, their expressions all but confirm it. “I’m getting a divorced. I didn’t _ask. _I _am _getting one. She was… Myra was…” Eddie shakes his head and gives a dry laugh. They all know, he’s sure of that. “There’s just, a lot I have to sort out now.”

“We’ll help you,” Ben says immediately.

“Y-Yeah, man, you don’t even h-have to ask.”

“I wasn’t _intending_ on asking—“

“Then, just take it and be quiet,” Mike suggests smoothly.

“I’ll give you the card for my lawyer,” Beverly tells him, and she sounds so thrilled as she rummages through her purse.

“What? Guys, it’s—“

“And, you know, you’re going to live with me, so it’s whatever,” Richie says then. He’s got that serious expression on his face again, but he looks a bit pale, like saying the words aloud might cause more damage than good. “I have a place in LA, I have a place in Chicago, I would get a place in New York if that would make it any easier.”

Eddie is sure the whole room goes silent, but he can’t hear much aside from the blood rushing to his head.

“God, you guys are so lovey dovey already,” Ben teases.

“We can’t let them beat us!” Beverly tells him with a laugh, reaching over to hand the card over to Richie, who tucks it safely in his _very_ handy, thank you very much, pocket on his Hawaiian shirt.

“A declaration of love, huh…” Bill says, sounding mystical, and Mike just doubles over and laughs.

“What? Richie, that’s—“ Eddie doesn’t know what to say. _Love, a declaration of love. _His mind reels, one thought after another, and then Richie’s giving him a lopsided grin, a particular mischief in his eye that was so much like when they were younger.

“I mean, guys, I’m basically a homewrecker, you know?” Richie sighs and shrugs like it couldn’t be helped. “It’s the least I could do.”

“A homewrecker?” Beverly hums, eyebrows raised. Bill’s holding in his laughter, Mike has to look away, and Ben’s already snickering. Bev crosses her arms, leaning in so she’s eye level with Eddie. “Is there something you aren’t telling us?”

“What the hell, Rich!” Eddie yelps, his face redder than ever. He leans back, raising his hands to shove at Richie’s shoulders. “Technically, I’m still married!” And Richie just laughs and laughs, that familiar wheeze catching in his throat, and Eddie can’t even be mad when Richie catches his hands, threading their fingers together, without a care in the world. Richie brings Eddie’s hands closer, brushing his lips against his knuckles. “What the hell,” Eddie mutters, glaring, but it doesn’t hold any heat. The other Loser’s are laughing around them, and it’s nostalgic. “I hate you so fucking much. Every day, I’m just reminded of how much I despise you.”

“Oh yeah, Eds. I know,” Richie says, his voice all soft and fond as he murmurs the words against Eddie’s knuckles.

*

Richie learns how to dress the wound, bombarded with instructions on cleaning it and making sure it doesn’t get wet, what to look for in case of infection. He pays attention, of course, but it’s so hard to _fully_ pay attention when he already vaguely knows half of the stuff due to Eddie’s rants; not to mention Eddie himself could be a doc on the black market, with all the medical shit stored up there in his brain.

He snickers at that, and tugs his smile wider at the raised eyebrows he gets from the nurse who helps him.

The cut goes diagonal on Eddie’s back—the sutures go from his left shoulder and across, down to the curve of the right side of Eddie’s ribs. It isn’t _terribly_ big, not compared to what happened in the Deadlights, but it looks like it hurts so bad, even with the pain meds. But Eds has always been brave, Richie reminds himself, and he catches himself murmuring it to Eddie when the pain sears and causes his jaw to seemingly lock in place.

_You’ve always been brave, Eds, you can literally do anything, you’ve always been brave, this is nothing._

It earns him a smile, and that’s all Richie cares about.

The neurologist and doctor stop by, explaining the nerve damage—not severe as the cut didn’t go deep enough sever his spinal cord, but Eddie may still experience tingling sensations in his arm, a bit of weakness in his grip, so they recommend therapy for the nerve damage, but they assured that with time and patience, it would get better. Eddie nodded along, the look on his face pretty much conveying he already _knew _all this. Richie had to stifle a snort, because even _he _could tell Eds would need it—his walking has gotten better, so much better than the first time, but it was still obviously awkward; not to mention the many types of linen the hospital’s gone through because Eddie’s grip on his drink or utensil had just suddenly vanished.

It’s a few days before Eddie goes to the physical therapy ward, getting wheeled off in a wheelchair because it was just too far of a walk. Richie watches him go, a small, almost sad smile on his lips as he offers a small wave. He had asked if Eds wanted company, to which Eddie said: _don’t call me Eds, and… no, I… I think it would make it harder._

Richie’s heart squeezed, full of endless love and affection. He nodded, his smile wide as he said,_ gotcha, Eds, no offense taken. I’ll be waiting for you._

Eddie smiled, his brows furrowed to fight off the intensity in which he wanted to smile, and said,_ see you soon, Rich._

*

It takes time.

Eddie gets better, all around. His walking has gotten smoother; he’s able to straighten his back almost all the way now without pouring sweat from the pain, and the sutures are gone within two weeks, much to the doctor’s surprise, and a scar begins to gloss over. It still needs taken care of, still needs wrapped, still needs monitored, but Richie had proudly proclaimed he would be Eds’ _personal_ nurse-maid guy, to which the remaining Loser’s, Mike and Bill, rolled their eyes at.

(Ben and Bev had sped off into the sunset about a week and a half ago, leaving behind their love and promises and maybe their eyes, Bev’s especially, had held more _knowing_ than Richie would have liked, but whatever. Bev had handed out pieces of paper with two phone numbers scrawled on them, telling them over and over to make _sure_ to contact as soon as they got new phones; she also made them cough up their numbers on the spot. Unlike Bill, Mike and Eddie, the rest of them had left most of their belongings at the townhouse, phones included.)

And so, Richie feels comfortable enough to leave, now—to go back to the hotel and shower, grab a change of clothes, and pick up some things to eat. (The others had taken care of the Townhouse issue before Ben and Beverly left, loaded all of Richie and Eddie’s luggage into a rental that was _practical_, and parked it at the hospital lot for them.) Often times, when he makes it back, Richie stays outside the closed door, because he knows Eddie only asks to borrow his phone for very few things.

Richie can hear Eddie talking with the lawyer Bev had given a card for, just barely. He hears the words _divorce_ and _prenup _and _Myra _a lot.

It’s not surprising, not at all, not _really._ It’s more like—like, it’s finally happening, it’s being put into motion, Eddie would be his _own_ person again, and maybe—maybe—

Richie has to swallow down a scream. His heart pounds profusely, so stupidly, so boyishly. He feels thirteen again, he feels like this is the second time he’s fallen in love with Eddie Kaspbrak, but Richie knows that’s not it. He had never fallen out of love. To put it simply, it’s like touching a live wire, _literally; _Richie feels as if he is constantly getting zapped, a vicious cycle of _lovehimlovehimlovehim _bombarding his senses, flooding his mind, enough to make him incredibly air headed_. _Once more, in the span of three minutes, Richie has to swallow down a lump in his throat that he just _knows_ would be a shout of pure happiness.

His hands shake as he holds the paper grocery bag in his arms. He listens to the flow of Eddie’s voice, muddled because he’s in the hallway, and Eds is behind a closed door, but it still causes his stomach to flip. Richie can’t really make out the words, but just hearing the _flow_ of it is enough and that’s when Richie squeezes his eyes shut, because _God_ he’s in so fucking deep.

He wants. He’s stupid with it, honestly. Richie thinks about their kiss in the sewers, the faint memory of teasing Eddie for a kiss in their childhood—he thinks about their hands brushing, kissing Eddie’s knuckles. It is all he can do to control himself, to not lather Eddie in thirty years worth of love and affection and _complete fucking_ _adoration._ Richie bites the insides of his cheeks, ignoring the itching of his scabbed wound as he forces himself to _breathe._

_It’s… you. It’s you, Richie._

“God, he’s so cute,” Richie says aloud, and then a voice is right there next to him—“Jesus, Rich, checking out the staff?”

Richie nearly jumps out of his skin, eyes wide as he jerks his head toward the voice. He’s greeted with Eddie’s shit eating smirk before the guy turns around.

“What the fuck, Spaghetti?” Richie calls, following Eddie back into the room. Richie watches Eddie climb carefully back into bed, and he definitely watches closely. He _wants,_ after all—could you blame him? He watches the shift of Eddie’s leg muscles, he traces the curve of Eddie’s ass with his eyes, and lingers where muscle shifts at his arms. Richie clears his throat, flopping down in the chair by the bed. “For your _information,_ I was not checking out the doctors or the nurses, but I _was_ just checking you out, like, literally, when you were crawling up on the bed.”

“Oh, sure.”

“Please, Eds. You know you’ve been all I can see for since, like, forever.”

Eddie snorts, and mutters a _now I do,_ but he looks embarrassed, so Richie’s smile widens.

He rummages through the bag, pulling out trial mix and a sports drink for Eddie.

“Did you get one of those stress balls?”

“Huh? Why would you need that?” Richie asks.

“Dude, really?” Eddie sighs, nose crinkled. “You can’t really expect me to use the ones here, do you? You know how much bacteria is probably festering on them? You know they just keep them in like, some fucking bucket behind the nurses’ station, you know? God, Rich. This is why you—“

“Eds, chillax,” Richie laughs, and leans forward, taking Eddie’s left hand in his right one. “This is what I mean.”

“I’m not following,” Eddie mumbles, but Richie can see the gears working, the flush crawling up his neck, but who was Richie to disappoint? If Eds wasn’t following, even pretending he wasn’t, Richie would make sure to trail him along. Richie squeezes Eddie’s hand, over and over, and smiles up at him, probably a bit too happily. “What I mean, Eds, is why would you need a stress ball when you got my hand, right here?”

“Oh, thank God, I thought you were going to say—“

“Eds, please, I got two balls of my own as well, but if you touch ‘em, I just might _explode. _Maybe next time.”

“I hate you,” Eddie says, but he’s smiling as he squeezes Richie’s hand regardless; steadily, a bit harder each time. Richie watches, eyes wandering up to Eddie’s face and then their hands, and he feels so… at peace. “I don’t know if this is, like, professionally recommended, though.”

“Who cares?” Richie says softly, and it must take Eddie by surprise, because his eyes widen before he blinks rapidly.

“What the hell,” Eddie mumbles, shaking his head. He squeezes Richie’s hand, rubs his thumb along Richie’s own. “You’re a sap.”

Richie laughs, soft and fond. “Eddie Kaspbrak, I’ve always been a sap for you. Just call me maple syrup.”

Eddie snorts, and wonders how much more he’s going to be shaking his head.

*

Eddie gets discharged on a cool, sunny morning, five days after Bill left, and two days after Mike left.

Richie can’t help but stare—he would say he doesn’t _mean_ to, but in all honesty, Richie was past the point of keeping his gaze away. Eddie wears one of Richie’s Hawaiian shirts—the one with the least amount of wrinkles, because Richie’s sure Eddie would’ve had a field day if he was forced to wear something so dingy. It’s pink, covered with blue, large leaves and red hibiscus flowers, and it’s one of Richie’s favorites, even if he can barely see it under the jacket Eddie shrugged on.

“Lookin’ good, Eds,” Richie tells him on the way to the car. Eddie walks carefully, angled just so, but Richie can see the ease that hadn’t been there months ago.

“Yeah? I pull this shit off better than you, I think.”

“Oh, Eds, you wound me.”

“Don’t call me Eds.”

“Eddie, honey,” Richie sing songs, and it earns him an eye roll and a huff of breath that seemed close to laughter, but Richie doesn’t mention it. “You need help?”

Eddie gives the rental CRV a wary look, and _no,_ he doesn’t particularly want help, but Eddie knows it can’t be helped. Though, something about the one helping him being _Richie _soothes something in him before he can think too deeply about it, even though Eddie already knows. He turns to Richie and gives him half a smile. “If you don’t mind, Rich.”

“Yeah, Eds. It’s not a problem,” he says, and steps forward to help Eddie in the car.

For the first try, it went smoothly.

When Richie makes it around to the driver’s side, Eddie’s already buckled in, and it is then that the security blanket of the hospital room drops like a bag of bricks. They sit there for a moment, and Richie wonders if Eddie feels… whatever it was that lingered there, too. Unease, worry, anxiety—but weren’t those feelings ones they had overcome, the moment Richie first came to see him, the moment Richie said _I love you_ after feeling lips against his, after being freed from the Deadlights?

Richie glances over to Eddie, who looks wary and pale, and Richie kind of wants to vomit.

Maybe it was what he was about to say.

Maybe it was because he was about to give another part of himself to the stupid guy sitting beside him.

“I think—“

“Rich, do you—“

They look at each other, wide eyed, lips sealed tight.

“You first—“

“Go ahead—“

Richie snorts, can’t help himself, and it only seems to get all the more funnier when Eddie laughs, too. Laughter fills the car until it eases slowly, and Eddie gestures to Richie with a hand, palm up, as if to say, _Rich, please._

Richie takes a deep breath, and although he hadn’t even started the car yet, he grips the wheel with both hands as if it were a lifeline. This is silly, isn’t it? They kissed in the sewers, flirted in the hospital. Richie _vividly _remembers expressing his offer to live together again, when the other Loser’s left, and he remembers the second round of surprise Eddie’s face has gone through, before he smiled, shy, and said _you know,_ _I think… I’d like that, Rich_. They practically conveyed their feelings for each other—thirty fucking _years _worth of them. Richie swallows against the nervous laughter bubbling up, and clears his throat, as if it would make it all the more easier.

It was seriously silly, Richie decides, because at forty years old, he’s still able to feel so much like a thirteen year old again: giddy, butterflies in his stomach, sweat prickling at the back of his neck because Eds was right here, next to him, looking expectantly at him.

The same eyes: wide and curious, inviting and earnest.

Who was Richie Tozier to let Eddie Kaspbrak down?

Who was he to deny Eddie anything?

With those thoughts in mind, Richie finally says, “I think that… I’m ready to show you something. Or, I mean, I don’t know, I guess there is no… _feeling_ ready about it, because at the end of the day, it’s just—“

Eddie’s laugh cuts him off. “Rich, calm down, you’re starting to sound like me, it’s creepy.”

“I don’t have an inhaler,” Richie tells him, a chunk of his nervousness gone. He gives Eddie a smile, and he can already see the beginnings of Eddie rolling his eyes, dramatic. Richie blows him a kiss, and feels weightless from the simple act, weightless because Eddie flushed immediately. “Will you give me some air, Eds?”

“Shut up.” Eddie shakes his head, but there is a wide smile tugging at his lips, causing the glossy beginnings of a scar to stretch against his skin. “Start the car. I… I also have something I need to show you.”

“Eds, if you wanna show me what you’re packing, be my guest. Right now.”

“I hate you,” Eddie laughs. “Start the car.”

*

The ride back to Derry doesn’t take long. In fact, the minutes go by rather quickly, and Richie has this love hate feeling toward it. He goes five under the speed limit on purpose, and Eddie must know this, but he doesn’t comment, and Richie appreciates it. It gives him time to prepare himself, to rehearse what he is going to say, maybe sprinkle in a joke or two, or maybe none at all.

His heart races.

It’s a familiar road.

The grass sways in the wind, the clouds break and blue pops through, and the sun shines against red so drastically it hurts to look at. Richie parks the car a ways back, his knuckles white with how tightly he is gripping the steering wheel. _You got this,_ he tells himself, wide eyes staring straight ahead. _You got this. It’s just Eddie. It’s just Eddie. You love him. You love him, you’ve _always_—_

“Richie?” Eddie’s voice is soft, and it eases the tension in Richie’s stomach.

“Yeah, Eds. Yeah.” Richie clears his throat, loosening the grip he has on the wheel. “Come on, I have something to show you.”

Richie stumbles out of the car, and while he doesn’t mind helping Eddie maneuver around, he’s kind of thankful that it’s easier to get _out_ of the vehicle than _in._ It means he’s _able_ to stumble, means Richie is able to take several deep breathes as he tries to will his hands to stop shaking. Fear was in the pit of his stomach, and he thinks about how ridiculous it was—but he knows it is something that cannot go away so easily. Richie shoves his hands into the pockets of his jacket, unsure of what to do with them even after they stop shaking.

He heads toward the bridge, and doesn’t have to look behind him to know Eddie is following. Richie comes to a halt automatically, the space between the road and where his carving is a distance his body knows too well. Eddie stops right beside him, but he isn’t looking at the wooden railings, no—he’s looking right at Richie, the sun on his face, making his eyes the same warm brown Richie would always see as a kid.

Something about it calms him even further.

“Uh, it’s here,” Richie mumbles, keeping his hands pocketed even as he gestures to the carving in front of them.

**R + E**

It was worn with age and weather, but still legible because Richie had carved it so _fucking_ deep when he was a kid, as if the deeper it was, the more love he could channel into it. It is a romantic thought, a telling gesture.

Eddie turns then, and the floodgates seem to open for Richie.

“Hope it’s not dumb, Eds, but the love goes deep,” he says, and maybe his laugh is bitterer than he intends. “It’s—uh, since, you know, we were kids. I meant it when I said it’s you, that I love you, like—it’s honestly unfair, and unreal, but when Mike called me? I just, I remembered you. I remembered. You were always fucking haunting me, or I guess—young Eds was always haunting me, fanny pack and all. I could never tell who it was, who the… the… shadow in my dreams were. But when Mike called, I remembered, and I suddenly just—it’s stupid. Is it stupid?”

Silence settles over them for no more than a second until Richie goes on.

“I don’t think I never… _not_ loved you, like, Jesus fucking Christ man, I had a Eddie shaped hole inside me all that time, I knew about it, could fucking feel it, but never understood it. Then—the phone call, memories came back, _you_ came back, you—I puked up a very expensive lunch, asshole, so you better take _some_ responsibility.”

Richie conjures up enough courage to glance beside him. Eddie is still standing there, so that’s one good thing, but he’s got this unreadable look on his face—his eyes wide and he looks kind of like stone. The fear bubbles back up, and Richie wants to vomit all over again; maybe this was some sort of line Richie had just crossed, that he hadn’t even known was there?

Could that even be possible, after the last few months? Had he been going backwards all this time?

“Eds, I—“

“Rich, please, I—“ Eddie takes a deep breath, and Richie sees that his hands are shaking. “This is, this is so unfair. I thought—I thought that, maybe, I don’t know, I had no fucking clue, even though I hoped, but I didn’t _think_—“

“E-Eds?”

“Shut up! Shut up!” Eddie shakes his head, and steps past Richie, and his stomach sinks so familiarly, so disgustingly, Richie is sure his vision is swaying. Eds is going to leave him there and walk out of town, Eds is going to be a _hitchhiker, _for God’s sakes, and—“Richie, what the fuck are you doing, playing opossum? Get over here.”

“What?” the word leaves Richie in a wet gasp and his vision stops swaying as if Eddie was the only thing that could ever right him. “What?”

“Dumbass. I hate you. I seriously hate you. Do you have a knife?”

“Oh, fuck, Eds, you gonna kill me?” Richie asks, but he steps over three steps, and shoves his hand in his pocket for the tiny pocketknife there. He hands it over, watching as Eddie opens it, and he sees it out of the corner of his eye before Eddie even opens his mouth, before he even makes it _known_. “E-Eds?”

“Shut up, Richie,” Eddie sighs, but he sounds calmer now, less strung out than he did moments prior. He kneels there, in front of the wooden railing, tiny pocketknife in hand as he tilts his head up to look at Richie. “I seriously can’t stand you right now,” he tells Richie, but he’s got that half smile on his face, and his eyes are warm and soft, and Richie thinks that Eddie looks like everything he’s ever wanted, and more, and more, and _more._

Richie forces a laugh, breathless. “Good thing you aren’t standin’, Eds.”

Eddie rolls his eyes, something Richie almost misses. “Yeah, guess so,” Eddie says, then turns toward the railing. Richie can barely breathe, can barely think, and can barely get himself past the mountain of love and joy and giddiness that suddenly bombarded him.

It’s the first time Richie’s seen it.

**R**

The letter is _neat,_ boxy; Richie could tell it was carved with care and precision. The heart around it wasn’t as neat, as if it were done in hurry, but it still sets Richie’s heart on fire.

“You… you may have beaten me to other things, but I’ll be damned if I’m not recarving _my _declaration of my thirteen year old crush before you, asshole,” Eddie says. He braces a hand on the railing and brings the pocketknife up to the wood. Richie watches Eddie recarve it, slowly and carefully, and listens to him speak. “I saw it back then, your carving. I-I just, you know. I hoped, but I never dared to… to speak up.” Eddie digs the blade down into the wood. “I did, Rich, I hoped it was you. I had to stop myself from… from looking at it anytime I passed it. I couldn’t get the _daydream_ of you carving it out of my head.” Eddie carves into the top before moving onto the other side, then the bottom, finishing off the box of the _R._

Richie swallows and finds that his throat is _very_ dry. “Eds, I mean, it… it couldn’t have been helped,” he assures lamely.

“I know,” Eddie agrees with a shrug. He recarves the slash of the _R,_ finishing the letter, and then laughs. “I remember… carving it. God, I—I asked Bev if she could swipe a knife from her apartment or something for me, because I was too afraid of my mom somehow finding out I hid a paring knife in my fanny pack or something. I never told Bev what it was for, just that, you know, I… couldn’t risk taking one from my house. I kind of remember… the look she gave me.” Eddie shakes his head, but the expression on his face is nothing but fond. Carefully, he digs along the heart, eyebrows furrowed in concentration. “She knew, didn’t she?”

“Y-Yeah, Eds. She… she knew,” he says, and then hesitates before adding, “Stan… Stan, too. At least, on my side of it all.”

Eddie laughs, but it is soft and easy. “Thought so…didn’t… know about Stan, though.”

It’s silent for a moment. Richie stands there, air headed as he takes up residency on cloud nine, watching Eddie carve the heart over again. The heart is funny looking—weird on one side and resembling a half of a heart on the other side, and a thought comes to Richie that he can’t _not_ voice.

“You… did you carve this when your arm was broken?”

“Yeah. I did.” Eddie nods as he finishes off the heart and traces his handiwork with his index finger. He tilts his head, and Richie sees a faraway look on his face before he speaks again. “I…I remember, I was so worried about the _R _looking like shit, that I…” Eddie brings his free hand to his face, embarrassed. “I practiced carving it in trees at the park, and on… on trees on the way back home from the clubhouse.”

Richie’s legs suddenly felt like jell-o. With a sigh that sounded more like a scream than not, Richie drops to the ground, balancing on the balls of his feet as he covers his face with both hands. “God,” he groans, but he’s laughing and smiling, full of love and adoration. “That’s so cute, Eds.”

Eddie snorts as he closes the pocketknife. “Don’t call me Eds.” He leans over and tugs Richie’s right hand away from his face. Gently, he places the pocketknife in the palm of Richie’s hand, and curls his hand to the back of Richie’s, coaxing his hand shut. “Go on, then, Rich,” Eddie says as he nods toward Richie’s carving. “Don’t leave a guy hanging. It’s your turn.”

Richie gives him a wide smile and turns, opening the pocketknife once more. “I don’t really have that grand of a story for you, Eds,” he says, digging the blade into the line of the _R_. He’s quiet for a moment, mulling over his words, recalling young and fiery emotions. “I just…” Richie hesitates, concentrating on the curve of the letter before smoothing it over with his fingers. “I had a lot of emotions in my shitty, tiny thirteen year old body.”

Eddie barely hides his laugh, and Richie rolls his eyes.

He finishes the slash of the _R,_ and is quick with the plus sign. “It was… a few days after what happened at the arcade. You know, Bowers and Co.—always the _loveliest _group of people to be around,” he tells Eddie sarcastically, and takes his time with recarving the _E_, simply because the letter is _precious._ “You heard about it, right? Around town, around school.”

It’s a barely there nod, but it’s a nod nonetheless. Richie doesn’t have to see the look on Eddie’s face to know how he looks—his stillness and the tiny nod he sees from the corner of his eye is enough.

“Yeah,” Richie sighs, finishing off the second line. “I was torn up about it, but like—at the same time, I just kinda thought, _who gives a shit,_ even though _I_ certainly did give a shit. But, it was… it was about you, too, Eds. Even if I was a coward, even if I… hid behind every stupid joke about pussy and fucking your mom that no one laughed at, it was about _you_ too. That’s… that’s why I carved our initials here, I guess; even if I never… told you, there would still be something in this God awful town that… that showed how I felt, something that… grounded all of my feelings for you.”

With that, he finishes the _E,_ and copies Eddie by tracing the freshly carved declaration with the pad of his finger.

Beside him, Eddie hums. “Were you always a romantic?” It’s a tease, of course, but he barely manages it—his voice is too soft, he sounds too breathless, and he feels lightheaded. However, Richie doesn’t tease back.

“What can I say, Eds?” Richie laughs as he stands up, offering a hand to Eddie.

A wave of nostalgia hits Eddie square in the chest as he takes what he’s offered. He squeezes Richie’s hand, allowing himself to be pulled up slowly, and like a switch getting flipped, a memory bombards him.

_(“Truth or dare?” Bev asked._

_“What’s the point?” Eddie sighed and tried not to put too much venom in his voice. “Richie never picks truth.”_

_“I’m not a pussy, Eds, that’s why I always pick dare.”_

_“Didn’t I call you a pussy the other day and you said, _you are what you eat_?”_

_Somewhere from the right, Stanley rolled his eyes and proceeded to pointedly ignore his friends._

_“H-How about y-y-you puh-pick t-truth just this o-once?” Bill suggested, always the peacemaker. Richie glared at him, Eddie perked up curiously, and the rest of the Losers kind of…stilled._

_“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea,” Eddie said, crossing his arms triumphantly as he nodded._

_Beverly looked at Bill, and then Eddie, ghosting over the others until her eyes finally landed on Richie. Her expression showed how uncomfortable she was, and Eddie must have felt the wariness in the clubhouse, because he clapped his hands abruptly and said, “Well, on with it! Come on, Richie, Bev asked you something!”_

_In the dim light of the clubhouse, no one saw how Richie Tozier’s hands shook. “Fuck you. Fine, whatever.”_

_Slowly, reluctantly, Bev asked again, “t…truth or dare,” in such a small voice that the others barely heard her._

_Bitterly, Richie said, “…Truth.”_

_“Who do you like?!” Eddie screamed._

_“It’s not your turn to be asking, asshole.”_

_“Bev!”_

_“W-Who…” Beverly looked away from Richie, and something about it was _Odd_, with a capital _O._ Eddie narrowed his eyes, his gaze flickering between the two of them curiously before Beverly finally finished, “…do you like?”_

_“E—“ Richie stumbled, his hands curled into fists, and Eddie wasn’t sure if he was imagining it or not, in the darkness of the clubhouse, but he could swear Richie was looking right at him. Eddie’s heart dropped straight into his stomach, hardening in the pit of it. “E—Eh—Eeeughh!” Richie screamed a garbled noise, throwing his hands wildly around him as if he could make the whole moment disappear. “Why does it matter?! No one’s gonna like this Trashmouth back anyways, guys! Fuck off!”_

_“Richie—“ Beverly gasped. _

_“That’s not t—“ Eddie started, only to clamp his mouth shut as Richie climbed up the ladder and proceeded to stomp away from the clubhouse._

_Once he was gone, everyone pointedly looked at Eddie._

_“Go after him,” Beverly demanded._

_“What?!”_

_Bill shifted on a milk crate, his expression unreadable, but there was the faintest trace of guilt there. He thought that, perhaps he shouldn’t have opened his mouth. Bill wasn’t an idiot: he had eyes._

_“Richie, he…” Stan sighed, shaking his head as he and Beverly shared a _look.

_“What the hell?” Eddie screamed, looking toward Mike and Ben, who were so suddenly engrossed in the pile of nails Richie had swiped from shop class for Ben, who didn’t even know Richie had _swiped_ them from shop class in the first place. _

_Eddie groaned loudly, and if it were humanly possible, he thought he’d like to just vanish. “Fine! I’ll go after him!”)_

Eddie is breathless as he blinks past the haze and asks in a rush, “Truth or dare?”

“W-What?”

“Rich, remember, you said—you _told _me, you _promised.”_ Eddie’s talking fast, blinking rapidly. He tugs his hand away from Richie’s grasp only to raise both of his hands, grabbing at the hideousness of Richie’s shirt. They’re still in front of their carvings, still out in the open with the sun shining and the wind blowing, but in the half hour they’ve been here, not a soul had passed by. “You promised me, that—that, you would pick truth when I asked, if you were ready, and, and you would answer anything I asked, so, _Rich_—“

“What the fuck? I can’t believe you remember that.” Richie laughs though, breathy and wide eyed because Eddie is _right _there, in his business, hands gripping him urgently.

It was very familiar, achingly so.

_(“Richie!” Eddie screamed._

_“Fuck off, Spaghetti!” Richie shouted right back. He hurried away, stomping as he did, as if the intensity of his footfalls would rumble the Earth and scatter away anything he didn’t want to deal with. His eyes burned, his chest ached, and Eddie was still following after him and maybe his heart skipped and stammered at the thought: _Eds is chasing after me, he’s chasing after me—_but Richie Tozier knew not to allow his thoughts to get too outrageous._

_Richie was weak; two people knew his secret, _knew _him, even before the rumors started spreading._

_It was already too much for him, and he was demanded of more?_

Bullshit,_ he thought bitterly._

_“Richie, I’m sorry! Richie, wait up! You dickhead! Wait up!”_

_“No!” Richie shouted again and the only sounds that followed were Eddie’s surprised yelp, a _thump_, and the rustling of leaves._

_It was automatic, the way Richie had skid to a stop and turned around. Worry etched itself into his very core as he backtracked to where Eddie was on the ground. Richie is hesitant as he steps closer, embarrassment and shame a toxic mixture in the pit of his stomach. He felt sick. He felt like a fucking idiot. He felt like he was going to burst with love and affection and his body was too tiny, too lanky to hold all the emotions he felt. It seemed to worsen when Eddie looks up at him, his eyes a warm caramel brown in the light filtering through the treetops._

_“Eds?” Richie mumbled, the quietest Eddie had probably ever heard him._

_“I… I think I sprained my ankle,” comes Eddie’s equally quiet reply._

_Richie dropped down to his knees, hands hovered over Eddie’s leg, so close to touching, too nervous to commit. Eddie’s leg is smeared with dirt and broken pieces of leaves, and at the sight of no blood or scrapes or worse, something broken, Richie lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Eds, I’m sorry,” Richie said._

_“What? Dumbass. Don’t be. It…it’s because I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going,” Eddie told him, and averted his gaze so he would be looking at anything that wasn’t Richie. He knew he had an apology he needed to say—and it was strange, he thought, how Stan and Beverly seemed more upset than usual, and how he thought he should be apologizing to them, too, and not just the boy in front of him._

_Embarrassment settled beneath Eddie’s ribcage, pounding profusely, so harshly he felt sick. _

_Eddie opened his mouth, words on the tip of his tongue. He closed his mouth._

_“Do you… think you can walk?” Richie asked, glancing toward Eddie._

_“What? Oh.” Eddie hummed thoughtfully, brows furrowed as he looked at his outstretched foot. He moved his foot left to right and winced. “I-It’s okay, Richie,” he insisted hurriedly, pulling his leg toward his torso, as if that would make it all the more better. “I can walk, it’s okay.”_

_Richie gave him a dubious look and rolled his eyes. “You’re a shit liar, Eds,” he told the other boy, and hoisted himself up. Richie reaches out expectantly, and Eddie thinks that it is completely strange, the way he doesn’t even argue with Richie as he takes his hand, allowing himself to be pulled up. The feel of their hands clasped does nothing to help the breathlessness he already felt. “Don’t put any weight on that foot,” Richie said._

_“Why the fuck are you telling me of all people this, Richie? I know, and—wait, what the fuck are you doing?!” Eddie squeaked, his eyes widening as he takes in the sight of Richie turning around and bending his knees a bit, arms reaching behind him. Eddie favors the uninjured leg, the tip of his shoe barely against the ground._

_“What do you mean, what the fuck am I doing?” Richie asked, and Eddie didn’t have to see the eye roll to know it was there. “Climb on up, Eds.”_

_“What the fuck? I can’t.”_

_“Eds, shut up and get on. I’m not gonna make you walk back home through this death trap on a sprained ankle.”_

_“What if you drop me?!”_

_Another eye roll is present as Richie sighed. “As if I would drop precious cargo,” he said, all too serious, all too softly. It effectively made every panicked cell in Eddie’s body sing in delight instead, made his heart race and his face take on a feverish flush that definitely wasn’t a fever at all. _

_For all their name calling, for all their teasing, Eddie thought himself as a boy who _knew _what this feeling meant. _

_He knew. He knew. Oh, he knew all too well._

_“F-Fine,” Eddie stuttered all the while completely ignoring the fact he stuttered. He hopped forward and lowered himself a bit, sliding his arms around Richie’s neck, dangling there like the koala he saw in a poster at the school library._

_“Hang on tight,” Richie mumbled. His hands come to the backs of Eddie’s thighs easily, pressing Eddie’s knees to his waist, and he straightens his spine as he keeps hold of Eddie._

_“Don’t drop me!” Eddie screamed, right in Richie’s ear. His arms tighten around Richie, and in the midst of his panic he is careful not to outright choke the boy. Eddie grabs two fistfuls of Richie’s shirt, hands gripping him urgently. “Don’t fucking drop me and kill me before I have a chance to fucking say sorry to your stupid face!”_

_Richie’s voice is strained as he asked, “But Eds, what would you have to say sorry for?”_

_Eddie’s breath catches in his throat. He stayed silent for a moment, the hold he has on Richie’s shirt tight enough to make a mold, and a moment passes fleetingly as Eddie thinks, _that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. _Eddie groaned, shaking his head. “It’s—you know,” he said, wishing Richie would tell him to shut the fuck up, for once. Eddie’s voice went incredibly quiet as he murmured, “you know… back at the… the clubhouse.”_

_“Oh,” Richie hummed, and shrugged._

_It’s silent, but not as awkward as Eddie thought it’d be. Richie walked slowly, carefully, his head bobbing up and down as he watched where his feet landed and then back up to the space in front of them. Eddie can’t help but think Richie’s going to slow on purpose—but finds that he cannot even muster enough irritation to speak up. His grip on Richie’s shirt loosens, until his hands are pressed to his collarbones, fingers sprayed in the concave of them._

_“I do mean it, though, Rich,” Eddie mumbled._

_“I know,” Richie said, and then, all in one breath: “It’s just, you know, it’s unfair because I know when you’re lying, Eddie, and you lie when we ask you who you like when you pick truth.”_

_“What?” Eddie squeaked, hating how his voice ultimately betrays him, but something inside Eddie knows Richie simply lets him get away with lying, because when else would Eddie lie? It’s only because he is nervous—and it is then he fully realized how unfair he had been. “I don’t lie,” he lied, and maybe the emotion in his voice was barely there._

_Richie laughed, though, didn’t hold it against him. “Yeah, Eds, you do.”_

_“But, you know, it’s not true,” Eddie said, changing the subject._

_Like riding a wave, Richie asked, “Whatcha mean, Eds?”_

_The sounds of the woods around them are getting quieter, now. The birds chirping fades into something like background noise, and the amount of roots that threaten to trip Richie dissipates gradually as well does the amount of trees surrounding them. Eddie doesn’t want this to end, not really—he’s close to Richie right now, so close, almost too close, embarrassingly so._

_He wondered if that was Richie’s heart pounding so hard, or his own._

Maybe both,_ he thought, and has this love hate feeling toward the thrill in the pit of his stomach._

_“It’s not true, that someone wouldn’t like you back,” Eddie said softly._

_“Yeah?” Richie mumbled, and Eddie doesn’t imagine how delicate his voice sounded—how scared, how strained, how almost broken. It shouldn’t have sounded like that, for how young they were, but Eddie _knew_ that, too, all too well, how it felt to feel as Richie sounded._

_“Yeah,” Eddie whispered against the shell of Richie’s ear._

_Richie sniffed, swallowing against the lump in his throat. He situates Eddie, leaning forward so he’s able to scoot Eddie up his back a bit more, and maybe that was Richie being young and in love and simply wanting to have more contact with the boy whom he was in love _with. _Richie stares straight ahead again, trying to calm his heart, trying to will his voice not to crack or break or come out too softly._

_Richie comes to a stop._

_“Richie?”_

_“I—uh…” Richie laughed, fixing his gaze pointedly at his shoes, worn and dirty with fraying laces and a hole on the outer left one. “I’ll—uh, tell you, one day.”_

_Stupidly, Eddie said, “What.”_

_“That—you know, dumbass, one day, when I’m ready, you know, uh—“ Richie breathed in deeply, and he swears he’s going to faint, he’s just going to pass out right here in the woods with Eddie on his back, and thank fucking God, Richie thinks, he made it this far, they’ll be able to be _found _if Richie really does pass out. The entrance to the woods that the Loser’s use was just mere feet away; surely, they’ll be safe if Richie passes out._

Yeah,_ he thought, _sounds like a good idea.

_“Earth to Richie,” the precious cargo on his back said._

_Richie cleared his throat, pushing Eddie’s thighs up once more because he had begun to slide down again. “I’ll, uh—you ask me truth or dare, and I’ll pick truth, and you ask a question, and I’ll answer, no lies.”_

_Eddie stammered incoherent words Richie couldn’t make out._

_“I-If… I’m… ready, though, Eds,” Richie added quietly. “Which, right now, I’m not.”_

_“N-No, Richie, that’s—“ Eddie sounded breathless, nervous. “I’ll definitely catch you off guard one day. I’m not going to forget this,” he said, and Richie tilted his head back and laughed a bit, and Eddie waited until the wheeze of his laugh softened into a snort before he asked, “but… what about… me?”_

_Richie hummed. He didn’t need to ask to know what Eddie meant, and he shrugged before hoisting Eddie up one last time, just because. It wasn’t as if he didn’t want to know. He did, desperately, so much that sometimes, he had to force himself to push the thoughts away. It was weird, Richie thought, that he would one day let Eddie pry the love out of him, but he wouldn’t dare do it to him._

_With a sigh, Richie started walking and said, “I’ll ask you too, if you want.”)_

“See?” Eddie says, giving Richie a quick shake. “I didn’t lie! I totally caught you off guard!”

Richie laughs, nervousness blooming in the pit of his stomach—but it wasn’t so terrible, not really. It was… new, something… something else fluttered open alongside the nervousness: anticipation, maybe. Richie lifts his hands, setting his palms against the backs of Eddie’s hands. “You… yeah, Eds, you really did catch me off guard.”

“Truth or dare,” Eddie demands, and the glare he gives Richie does nothing aside from making Richie’s heart quicken. “Richie, Richie, truth or dare, come on—“

Richie sighs as if this were the last thing he wanted to do, but he can’t stop the way his voice wavers as he murmurs, “…truth, Eds.”

“Don’t call me Eds,” Eddie says, and then, “do you want me to kiss you?”

“Huh? You’re not going to ask me who I like?”

Eddie tilts his head, and Richie thinks,_ adorable._ “What the fuck?” Eddie laughs, giving him another shake because he can’t believe how stupid Richie was being. “Isn’t that, like, you know, a given?”

“Well,” Richie mumbles nervously, a robotic sounding _ha ha ha_ escaping his lips. “I mean, I guess—“

“Do you want me to kiss you, Richie?”

“What the fuck, Eds? If you want to kiss me, stand on your tiptoes and _fucking_ kiss me.”

“I hate you!” Eddie shouts, but it is one of those whispery, half shouts meant for slumber parties and ghost rallies. “I’m trying to be polite, I’m trying to fucking ask for permission, asshole.” He does stand on his tip toes, though, inching closer, heart in his throat.

“I-I’m surprised, Eds.”

“What? Why?” Eddie unclenches his hands from Richie’s clothes, smoothing his hands over the feel of Richie’s collarbones, slipping them against the curve where neck and shoulder meet. He leans closer and wishes he was just a few inches taller.

“Thought you were married, do you really want to kiss me?” Richie whispers, tilting his head back just enough that Eddie can’t fucking _reach._

He was dying to kiss Richie, in all honesty. The sensation of their hands brushing, of Richie’s lips against his knuckles, or his forearm—that was nice, and it always felt like electricity coursing through his veins, but at the same _time…_ Eddie would catch himself staring at Richie’s lips, the curve of his smile, and sometimes Eddie swore he had caught Richie doing the same.

“I—That’s—“ Eddie stutters and digs his blunt nails into the tender skin of Richie’s neck. Richie shivers, and it causes Eddie’s heart to stop momentarily. He huffs out a breath, straining as he tries to stand on the _very _tips of his toes. Eddie rubs his nose against Richie’s chin as he explains, “When I—when I asked for the LA address, it was because Myra signed her side of it all, and now I have to, Rich, I gotta sign those fucking papers and it’s so close, I can taste it, getting a prenup is the only good thing I did when I forgot about this place, I won’t ever have to think about how I’m tied to her, wishing I was tied to you instead, and Rich, fuck you, I hate you, it’s not like I didn’t kiss you in the sewers, man, the fucking _sewers_—“

Richie’s laugh interrupts any other words Eddie had on his tongue. He’s still on his tip toes, pressed against Richie; they’re in each other’s space—so close, so near, Eddie can feel Richie’s exhales hitting his face, can smell the distinct smell of coffee on his breath. Eddie has a feeling of what he must look like—his eyes are not narrowed, he isn’t glaring, so they must be soft and full of adoration, and his lips curve upward into a tiny, earnest smile.

He thinks that he must look like he’s in love.

“What are you laughing at?” Eddie murmurs. He rubs circles into Richie’s neck, just to watch his shoulders bunch up because it’s ticklish.

“N-Nothing, Eds, quit that—quit! It fucking tickles! I-If you don’t stop I w-won’t be able to k-kiss you—!”

“You forget, Rich. I asked you if you wanted _me _to kiss _you._”

“If you don’t hurry up, I might just have to swoop in and—“

Eddie surges forward, knocking their noses together along the way, but his lips connect to their target easily.

It’s warm, achingly tender, and something about the way Richie caresses his face has Eddie feeling as though he could melt right into the soil alongside the sunshine. He tilts his head, accepting what Richie gives him, and Eddie gives him just as much if not more, and more, and _more._ Eddie trails his hands upward, and maybe it is kind of a difficult position—after all, Richie’s got his hands cupping Eddie’s face, and Eddie goes to do the same, but it works. His legs shake with being on his tip toes for so long, but Eddie cannot help but think it is also because he’s kissing Richie.

Richie presses in, tongue swiping against Eddie’s bottom lip, and Eddie opens his mouth, curling his tongue to the roof of Richie’s mouth and _god,_ neither of them is sure which one of them is shaking, anymore.

Eddie leans back, breathless laughter hitting Richie right in the face as he chases Eddie’s lips, trying for more contact, and he succeeds. Richie gives several tiny, closed mouthed pecks to Eddie’s lips before he finally seems satisfied. Richie lets his hands fall and sets them at Eddie’s waist. Eddie leans forward, seeking shelter in the comfort of Richie’s chest, in the comfort next to his racing heart.

He sighs and buries his face in Richie’s shoulder. Eddie slides his hands down and wraps them around Richie’s middle, mumbling.

“What was that, Eds?”

Eddie buries his face further into Richie’s jacket, mumbling louder.

“Eds, baby, come on.”

Eddie pulls back quick enough to surprise Richie. His face is pink, and it makes the scar on Eddie’s cheek stand out even more. His ears are beet red, and his mouth opens and closes as if he were a puppet, or maybe a fish out of water, Richie thinks. “W-What? What was that?” Eddie demands.

Slowly, Richie murmurs, “…come on?”

“No, uh, before—“

Like a sunrise, Richie’s smile brightens. “Eds, _baby_.”

“God. Fuck. I hate you.”

“That’s a shame, because I love you so.”

“Are you kidding me?” Eddie groans and detaches himself before it’s too late, before he becomes too content with standing there, out in the open, in front of their carvings, practically glued together. “Don’t take me serious. I don’t hate you.”

“Yeah, Eds, I know, you’re head over _heels _in love with me,” Richie says, and snorts, tugging backward when Eddie tugs forward_. _At Eddie’s curious, raised eyebrow, Richie drops his hand and scratches at the back of his neck. He digs his phone out of his pocket, opens the camera app, and turns to the railing. “We can leave in a sec, okay? I just—I have to… I want to take a picture of these.”

“Oh.” Eddie smiles as he takes a few steps forward, reaching out to place a hand on Richie’s shoulder. “Yeah, that’s alright.” And then, after a beat, “hey, Richie?”

“Yeah, Eds?” Richie murmurs after the shutter sounds off.

There is no hesitation. “I love you.”

“Yeah?” It’s soft and delicate, the way Richie says it, but it is so different from the _yeah?_ in the woods, as he carried a younger Eddie on his back because of a sprained ankle. It is easy and airy, _knowing._ Richie doesn’t sound scared, or broken, or hesitant. It is enough to give his heart wings.

“Yeah,” Eddie says, full of conviction.

Richie smiles as he points the camera to the boxy _R_, zooming in a bit with his thumbs_._ “Hey, Eddie?”

Eddie has to fight against his own smile, for fear his face would hurt. “Yeah, Rich?”

“I love you.”

“Yeah?” Eddie hums.

“_Oh_,” Richie sighs, and tilts his head up, eyes locking with Eddie’s. “Definitely.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! ♥


	3. like a heartbeat so softly, sail full of love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter 3 is here.... there was originally only going to be 3 chapters, but as I was writing it, it became so long (almost 16k, just 3k shy of what ch1+2 added up to be) that i decided to split it up, lol. not done with the (HOPEFULLY) final chapter, almost, but not quite !
> 
> sorry for the wait, I hope you enjoy! ;_; ♥
> 
> chapter title from: long hot night (halfway to certain) by the growlers

Eddie signs his part of the papers as soon as he’s able, and sends them off immediately. He even takes a break in unpacking and rearranging, even though it’s been about three days since they had touched down in LA and driven back to Richie’s house after _finally _finding his car in the parking garage. But, in his defense, he did packed quite a bit (the whole, _we’re getting a divorce if you go back there, Eddie!)_, and Richie’s house needed tidied up before Eddie even _humored_ the thought of letting his things touch dusty, grimy surfaces.

“I wish you were divorced, like, last week—no, like, a million years ago,” Richie says one evening, in the middle of dinner prep.

Eddie snorts, but can’t argue. There is much he cannot (_will not_) do because he is technically still _married_. Though, really, he thinks that it probably doesn’t matter at the end of the day. But Eddie is still the kind of man with morals, with codes, so he sticks to what he _follows _even though it literally pains him to do so.

Through the passing weeks, he hadn’t realized how much self control he contained in his five foot nine inch body until Eddie tapped into it and really put it to use.

Richie was, against all odds, out to get him, Eddie thinks—like a personal vendetta, a game of cat and mouse in which Eddie was always the mouse.

Richie’s touches linger, as does his eyes, and Eddie’s walked in on him naked in the bathroom after a shower numerous times, _and_ he’s walked in on Richie naked in the bedroom when he was changing just as much if not _more_. Eddie, a man of his own word, pointedly kept his eyes up, and up, and _Up,_ and that in itself showed _just_ how much self control he had. It wasn’t as if Eddie didn’t _want_—he was pent up with it, _overflowing _with want and desire and the urge to just slip a hand in Richie’s boxers when he slept, or to lean over and pepper kisses along Richie’s jaw when they were nestled on the couch, eating from the same bowl of chips and salsa; or when Eddie came back from grocery shopping and Richie was hunched over his laptop, tapping away at the keys because he had decided to start writing his own material—it was all Eddie could do to _not _run his fingers through Richie’s hair and clamber on top of him and set a claim.

That’s another thing—the sleeping arrangement. The conversation had been simple if not totally embarrassing, and the very straightforward act of sleeping in the same bed was… well, Eddie could barely handle it.

_(When they finally made it back to Richie’s house that he supposed was also now his, in their own little strange way, Eddie looked around curiously, taking in the simple overall design of the house. It wasn’t anything fancy, nor was it anything too drab—it was simple, practical, and somehow it fit into Richie’s overall feel. It felt so different to what he was expecting, which was the typical extravagant LA house; it was anything _but_._

_Eddie wondered if it was strange, that he already felt so comfortable in this unfamiliar space._

_He left his luggage in the foyer and followed Richie down the tiny hall. Eddie paused, taking in the open area, the only thing really separating the kitchen from the living room being the long kitchen island, accompanied by four tall stools. Eddie could see little things that were undoubtedly _Richie _scattered amongst the place, knickknacks on the side tables and posters hung onto the walls. He watched as Richie threw his keys in a bowl on the kitchen counter before shuffling toward the hallway off to the right._

_Richie looked over his shoulder and said, “I’ll just go change the sheets real quick, okay, Eds? Then we can go to sleep.” It was only a little after nine, but after the chaos of the flight and everything else, they were both almost dead on their feet._

_“Sheets? We?” Eddie sounded robotic, almost._

_Richie had given him a wary look, stopping in the doorway to fully turn around. He tilted his head in question. “Aren’t we sleeping in the same bed? I know you want the sheets changed, because I sure as fuck don’t know when I’ve last washed ‘em.”_

_“Oh. Uh.” Eddie looked anywhere but at Richie, because he was sure his face was reddening. He decided to completely ignore Richie’s last comment although he really wanted to make a remark about it. “We are sleeping in the same bed?”_

_“Yeah. Same bed, same room, Eds. Unless you, uh…“ Richie trailed off, shifting from foot to foot._

_“N-No, no! No, that’s, uh…” Eddie cleared his throat, forcing himself to meet Richie’s eyes. He thought that this was kind of silly, in a way. It wouldn’t be the first time they’ve slept in the same bed, or so close to each other, but the implications were so much more now than they were then. Eddie gives what he hopes is an airy smile as he said, “Same bed.”_

_“…Same bed?” Richie repeated, much like an offer that Eddie was more than welcome to refuse, if he wanted. It showed in the way Richie reciprocated the smile, showed in the way his voice was all but soft and understanding and it showed in the way Richie looked at him._

_But, Eddie hadn’t wanted to refuse. “Same bed,” Eddie told him, and proceeded to squeeze past Richie, down the hallway.)_

Eddie wondered how much longer he would be sane. Surely, at forty years old, he shouldn’t be feeling so much like a horny teenager who just _truly _learned how to masturbate. Eddie muses that it isn’t even all _sexual_, even if a part of it really _was. _No, it is also just the simplest desire, the most innocent yearning of wanting to be _next_ to Richie, to touch him with his fingertips, to be pressed side by side together, to kiss at the pulse of Richie’s wrist when he caressed Eddie’s face.

They had time to make up for. They had so much to catch up on, it wasn’t _fair _that Eddie was still technically married, and he prays to a deity he wasn’t sure was even listening at all for some judge to just sign the fucking papers already so he wouldn’t feel pangs of guilt that he doesn’t want to feel, _shouldn’t _feel, but does because that is just the type of person he is.

Eddie’s wants and his codes clash weekly. It isn’t surprising, and yet…

It doesn’t help that Eddie _himself_ insists on keeping an eye on his back. It’s healed fairly well, all things considered—perhaps _too _well, and there is an inkling thought of weird alien magic maybe being involved, but they don’t like to think about it too much, so they don’t. 

Eddie’s healing, and that’s all that matters.

Sometimes, the edges of the scar gets dry and itchy, so surely just lotioning it up and gauzing it so his shirt wouldn’t get greasy was justified. _Surely,_ he reasons with himself, as Richie’s fingers glide over his back, as Richie’s hand settles on the curve of his ribcage, as _Richie’s palm_ takes the warmth from Eddie’s body.

The routine is basic clockwork, by now, a month and a half into living together.

Eddie turns around, less timid than he had been the first time, and slides his hands up Richie’s chest and up to his neck. He coaxes Richie forward, his eyes all soft and his smile equally so, and Richie just laughs that sigh like laugh that makes Eddie feel _drunk_ and Richie leans forward until their lips are brushing, and Eddie has to pull him forward the rest of the way to get what he wants.

Kissing Richie felt exhilarating every time, and it feels even more intense with Richie’s hands on his bare skin. Richie opens his mouth for Eddie and shuffles closer so the kiss could go as deep as they wanted. His hands trail along Eddie’s sides and his stomach, and Richie smiles into the kiss, nipping at Eddie’s bottom lip before leaning back, bending slightly to grip the backs of Eddie’s thighs, hoisting him up on the edge of the sink.

“You’re killing me, Eds.”

“What the fuck. I should be saying that to you. I know the divorce papers are all signed but that doesn’t mean a judge doesn’t have to sign off on them, too.”

Richie throws his head back and laughs, pressing his fingers against Eddie’s stomach. “I’m so pissed, honestly. How come you’re like, so toned and shit?”

Eddie rolls his eyes and presses his heel into the back of Richie’s leg gently. He trails his hands down, slipping them underneath Richie’s shirt to run his hands up the softness of Richie’s stomach. “I…I like… this, too, you know. You. I mean, as you are now, like, uh, always. Always have.” Eddie presses his lips together and opts not to embarrass himself further.

“Oh, Eds, you tryin’ to make me swoon?” Richie laughs, leaning in again—and he must have shifted forward without Eddie realizing it, must have slotted himself snugly between Eddie’s open legs when Eddie’s mind was elsewhere, because now—_now…_

Eddie stiffens. Not out of fear, nor is he uncomfortable, it just…

It’s too much yet it isn’t much at all.

“Richie…” The way he says it is almost a whine.

“Huh?” And then, “oh,” comes out with a quick understanding.

Richie shifts backward, angling his hips and his half hard dick away, and he pointedly tries not to look at the way Eddie’s gym shorts have their own tent. He swallows against the lump in his throat as he straightens his spine, moving his hands from Eddie’s stomach to his shoulders just as Eddie moves his hands from beneath Richie’s shirt and to his forearms.

“Sorry, Eds.”

Eddie snorts. “Don’t be. I mean, me too, you know. You _see_.”

“God, baby, I wish I could look down and stare, but I’m tryin’ not to explode here,” Richie tells him seriously. He makes soothing circles into the muscles of Eddie’s shoulders with his fingers as he tilts his head, smiling. “These past couple of months, I’ve been feeling like a damn teenager again. But…you know, I don’t fucking remember it being this god damn horrible.”

Eddie laughs and goes to duck his head down, but thinks better of it and instead shakes his head. Idly, he rubs his palms against Richie’s arms, marveling in the way he could do this, now. There is no hesitation, no guilt, no being soft with Richie and then pinching his arm so no one would get the wrong idea. “Yeah. I, I… yeah, I get it,” he murmurs, and then tugs Richie forward, biting the insides of his cheeks because the closeness would _surely_ kill him, the knowledge that Richie’s half hard and that just a simple kiss, just the simple proximity of their bodies caused it for the _both_ of them—it’s too much. Eddie inclines his head and rests his forehead against Richie’s collarbone. “I’m sorry, Richie.”

Richie wraps his arms around Eddie and shakes his head. “Don’t be,” he says, stealing Eddie’s previous words. He spreads his fingers along Eddie’s back, careful of the gauze because he knows Eddie would make him do it all over if the tape so much as budged, and usually that wouldn’t be such a bad thing, but now, Richie decides to behave. “I’m serious. Don’t be sorry. There’s literally not a thing to be sorry for. I get it, Eds, I do. You’re a good guy.”

Eddie snorts and makes it a point to roll his eyes dramatically.

“What the fuck was that for, huh?” Richie laughs and pinches Eddie’s sides, where he knows he’s the most ticklish. Eddie startles, almost jumping out of his skin as he raises his head only to glare at Richie, who just smiles down at him so innocently. “I mean it. You’re such a _gentleman,_ a real _upstanding _guy.”

“Alright, now I just get the feeling you’re making fun of me.”

Richie hums as if he’s considering it, and gives Eddie a smile that’s full of mischief. “Even if I’m making fun of you, baby, I mean it. It’s not like I haven’t waited for like, thirty fucking years.”

“We didn’t even remember each other for—“

“Eds,” Richie interrupts him promptly. “Really, that’s not relevant.”

Eddie glares at him. “Isn’t it?”

“No,” Richie says it lightly with a shake of his head. He takes Eddie’s hands in his own and takes a step back, coaxing him off the ledge of the sink. Richie waits to continue speaking until Eddie’s got two feet planted safely on the chilly floor of the bathroom. “It really doesn’t. The only thing that matters now is _now._ Us, right now, here, _right now._”

Eddie looks away, fighting the smile that wants to split his face in two. He maneuvers their hands, threading their fingers together, and when he chances a glance down, Eddie finds that Richie’s pants look mostly _normal_ again as does his own. A strange disappointment settles in his stomach, but it is fine, he assures himself, they’ll get there sooner or later.

He catches himself thinking something along the lines of wishing it were sooner rather than later, and has to bury the thought quickly before it hurdled itself out of his mouth. Instead, Eddie says, “Yeah. I guess you’re right for once, Rich.”

Richie’s laugh is something close to a bark, and says something about how he’s _always_ right, Eddie just never _listens,_ and proceeds to lean down to kiss Eddie’s forehead once, twice, maybe even five times.

*

Eddie finds that he is thankful for many things.

He’s thankful for Richie, who is, perhaps not so surprisingly, understanding and dare he even think it, _sweet._ He has a group of friends that love him, that care about him, and now that most of the memories are back, if not all of them, it makes it all the more heartfelt. The group chat updates daily, ranging from updates on Bill’s novel, Mike’s beachside creatures and/or adventures, pictures of Ben and Bev’s dog and blurry pictures of the sky, and Richie sends his own (horribly) blurry pictures of Eddie, to which Eddie immediately threatens via text that he will flush the toilet when Richie’s showering, or replace the sugar with the salt when Richie’s still half asleep in the mornings.

If they’re in the house together, he usually hears Richie laugh out loud after sending it, or he hears Richie wail, _hey, why the fuck is everyone sending those laughing emojis for?! _If not, Richie’s immediately texting back saying, _come on, Eds, you wouldn’t do that to lil ol me,_ to which all the other Loser’s text back, _he definitely would,_ all in their own words.

He’s even thankful for his past self, in _some_ regards.

Thankful for the small joint bank account he and Myra had had, thankful for his job that pays well, for the job that he was allowed to work at _home _for. (Asking had been awkward and difficult to explain, done when Richie was off out of the house meeting his agent because Eddie just didn’t want Richie to see him stammering and sweating.) For now, of course, it worked out—there was an itching in his bones to do more, _something else_, and he remembers Beverly saying, _please tell me you became a doctor, Eddie. _And so Eddie kept in mind that LA was vast and boundless, that he had his life ahead of him now, that perhaps he could follow through with that, and it could take him somewhere better. A thought was bundled up in the back of his mind, that with Richie, it seemed that all possibilities were endless.

Another thing that Eddie is incredibly thankful for is the prenup, above all. Especially when he’s flipping through the mail and when his knees almost give out at the sight of the pristine, white envelope in his hands with the lawyers name printed in a fancy scrawl on the upper corner.

He gasps audibly, and it comes out wet and raspy, like water is in his lungs, and suddenly Eddie is glad Richie went grocery shopping by himself, carefully written list shoved in hand. His hands shake as he opens a drawer in the kitchen, and Eddie has to will his hands still as he uses a knife to slice the envelope open.

The first thing that happens upon reading that his divorce is finalized is the way his heart seems to soar straight out of his chest. He swears he sees stars, the whole fucking _galaxy. _Thousands of things run across his mind from: _finally, finally_ and _this is real, I’m divorced _to _where is Richie,_ and _I want to put my hands on him right now._

Eddie isn’t sure why the course of his own thoughts surprises him when in all honesty, it shouldn’t.

Waiting for Richie to return home feels like it takes half the day when in reality it really only took forty five minutes. Eddie had since then carefully folded the papers back into the crisp white envelope, tucking it away safely amongst the papers he’d printed off for work. It seemed off, somehow, but where else could he hide it? _No,_ Eddie thinks, _hiding isn’t the right word; it’s more like… like…_ He shoves his thoughts away simply because he doesn’t have time to think about what the right word is.

He rushes to the side door leading into the garage once he hears the engine cut and the whirr of the garage door shutting. Eddie opens the door for him, his greeting a small smile and fingertips grazing against Richie’s cheek. Richie smiles back widely before letting some of the bags get taken by Eddie.

He’d never thought he’d be living in such domesticity. It applies to the both of them.

A strange silence settles over them as they unload the bags; it is strange because it is not uncomfortable, nor is it entirely _comfortable_. Eddie’s the one who puts most of the groceries away, because although they both share the kitchen in terms of cooking meals, Richie’s the one who shoves anything where it may fit, because he claims to be the reigning champ of _Tetris_. Eddie’s had too many spices fall from the cabinets and hit him in the face, has had too many haphazardly stacked items fall out from the fridge once the door opened only to land on his foot.

It’s when Richie picks up his half of the mail from the countertop, rummaging through it, that Eddie remembers exactly why he feels so nervous.

The words are simple, Eddie knows. _My divorce was finalized. I got the letter today._ Or, maybe a simple, _I’m divorced, Richie, _would suffice—they could talk about the little details later, if Richie really wanted to know, but Eddie couldn’t care less. There is a want deep in his core, seeping through his bloodstream and he is so totally sure that it seeps through his pores and out into the air, mingling with the oxygen that the two of them inhale. It seems so potent that Eddie’s surprised Richie doesn’t immediately sense it.

It’s too much. It’s absurdly embarrassing. Eddie clutches the carton of orange juice in his hands until his hands become uncomfortably wet and the tips of his fingers turn chilly. He opens the fridge and shoves the carton onto the top shelf before closing it, turning around, and placing his hands on the counter of the island once he’s made it over there without stumbling or slipping, or even collapsing on the spot.

_I’m divorced, Richie._

Three words. They are three words—simple, clear and to the point, no room for questions or wonder.

Eddie clears his throat, and he’s not sure what to do with Richie’s curious eyes on him, unsure of what to do now that he has Richie’s undivided attention. His eyes are soft, his smile even softer, and it makes Eddie’s heart pound and pound until he swears he’s running a marathon and not just standing in the kitchen in shorts and a t-shirt of Richie’s that is way too big on him, trying to figure out a way to let the guy know he’s _divorced,_ and that maybe he would like to get fucked, _now_.

The words are on the tip of his tongue. _I’m divorced, Richie._ They are three, easy words that will be no problem to say aloud. _I’m divorced, Richie._

Eddie opens his mouth, but what comes out is: “I think maybe we should get a cat.”

Richie tilts his head, his mouth hanging open in a smile. “Oh?”

Hadn’t this happened before? Eddie ducks his head and stares at the speckled countertop, counting the white specks around his fingers as if it would ground him from embarrassment.

_(Eddie thought himself as someone who was not, at least, a total fool._

_He’d seen enough movies at the theater; he’d watched enough shows with his Ma on the television; he’d heard enough love confessions in the halls at school, in the park a couple of blocks from the school. God, he’s heard all the songs on the radio._

This is… love, _Eddie thought to himself, _or, a crush? Wait, isn’t that exclusively the same fucking thing?

_He inhaled deeply, watching Richie from the corner of his eye. He’d told his mom about a school project they were doing, and _please can I stay over at Richie’s for the weekend so we can get it done in time,_ and although her eyes narrowed in suspicion, she had begrudgingly agreed to let him spend the weekend at Richie’s house for the supposed project. _To let the Tozier’s clean up any possible messes, _she’d said, and Eddie had agreed with an _of course, Ma, thank you, _and a smile he hoped didn’t look too sly._

_There was a project, he hadn’t been lying—it’s just, he’d been paired with Bill and not Richie, and he’d told her that it had been _Richie_ he’d been paired with. (His mother would surely ground him when, or if, she ever found out, and Eddie decided he was prepared for that.) The project was due in two weeks time, so there was absolutely no rush, no need to spend a weekend at anyone’s house so it would be done within such a short deadline. (Again, he was sure he’d be grounded; again, he was prepared for it.)_

_When he had relayed this information to Richie upon entering the privacy (and comfort (not that he’d ever admit it)) of Richie’s bedroom, Richie’s eyes had gone bug wide behind his glasses, and he’d thrown his head back with a deafening laughter, screaming about how Eddie was getting more and more devious with each passing day._

_Eddie had rolled his eyes and said: “These are the lengths I go to hang out with you, fuckface.” And Richie just smiled and smiled like he knew all too well, and Eddie had to look away before his ears turned red._

_Now, they were laid back on Richie’s bed that Eddie had _insisted_ on making before laying down. _Just because you put fresh sheets on doesn’t mean the bed can’t be made, _he’d said. Their heads were at the foot of the bed, and their feet at the head of the bed; Eddie lied down comfortably while Richie planted his socked feet on the wall, right above the headboard. He had a comic in hand while Richie had nothing, opting to look up at the popcorn ceiling and mull over the things he sees there._

_“That one looks like a bowtie, almost.”_

_Eddie hummed, barely sparing a glance up to the ceiling._

_“What about that one? It totally looks like a rabbit.”_

_Eddie laid the comic on his chest and focused on the spot Richie pointed to. He furrowed his eyebrows and said, “I don’t know… it looks more like a dragon to me.”_

_“A—A dragon? Dude, what?” Richie laughed, and flopped an arm to the side, playful in the way he lightly hit Eddie with the back of his hand._

_Eddie smiled fondly, and thought, _that’s it,_ and then, _what’s what?

_He surprised himself, but… had he really? He blinked a few times, opened his mouth, closed it, and then lifted the comic book once again. The colors blurred together, the speech bubbles barely made any sense, and he couldn’t help the almost sickening wave of déjà vu that washed over him._

_This had happened before, back at the clubhouse, nestled together in the hammock at thirteen years old._

_Would this be the last time this happened? Or were there more moments like these to come?_

_Eddie felt lovesick, or was love struck the correct term? He didn’t know. He was only sixteen, his limbs ganglier than they were three years ago, his skin rougher, and his face greasier, his hormones wilder than ever. There were many doors that had opened for him—class trips, drivers education—and yet his mother had pinched her lips together and told him she’d think about it and then proceeded not to give any thought to any of it at all._

_Crushes, love, feelings of liking someone—those were things you couldn’t control, things you hadn’t needed permission for, something that no one could take from you. Fundamentally, they were your own, a bud in the garden of your own heart, and Eddie wondered._

_He wondered. He wondered. _

_So much and so often he wondered that it caused his dreams to give him a sight of a field full of flowers budding and blooming; so much and so often he wondered with a boy in mind that sometimes, he could hear that boy’s laughter and smell the watermelon candies the boy liked so much upon waking up._

_Eddie tilted his head and tried to swallow down the anxiety before it showed too clearly on his face. Breath was caught in his throat, and he told himself over and over that he didn’t have asthma, that he didn’t need an inhaler, that he was fine, right there beside Richie, better than he’d ever be. Panic may be rising in his chest, threatening to constrict around his lungs and windpipe, but the warmth of Richie’s arm was right there against his, the smell of Richie’s cheap body wash lingering in the air._

_It would always be enough to ground him._

_After a deep inhale, he lolled his head to the side and took in Richie’s profile. Eddie studied the bump on the bridge of his nose, the curve of his lips and the angle of his chin. His hair was a curly mop on his head and seemed unmanageable, but Eddie found that he rather liked the way it fluffed in the wind, or looked even messier when Richie tangled a hand in the curls in frustration. The window with its opened curtains on the other side of the room allows light to filter in, and Richie was _right_ there, shone with the gentle rays of yellow light. His eyes look weird as they catch the light, and his eyelashes seemed to disappear in the brightness and closeness of it all._

_“Eds?”_

_Eddie blinked slowly, too drowned in adoration to snap at the use of the nickname he pretended to hate but loved beyond anything else._

_“…Eds? Eddie…” Richie wavered, his laugh sounding strangled. He cocked an eyebrow, trying for easiness but Eddie could see the crease of worry between his brows. “What’s up, Eds? You’re freakin’ me out.”_

_“Sorry,” Eddie said, and turned his gaze toward the ceiling. “It’s just—I… I, uh, I don’t know. I don’t know. Never mind.”_

_Richie rolled over onto his side, propping his jaw against the heel of his palm. From the corner of his eye, Eddie could see how worried Richie looked, the way his brows knitted together, the way his lips pressed together. “Eddie? What’s wrong? If… uh, if something’s wrong…” Richie laughed nervously, eyes darting around the room. “You know that I’ll listen to you.”_

_This was nothing new. They were best friends, after all._

_“Y-Yeah… Yeah, Richie, I know,” Eddie smiled over at him, the words _I like you, I like you, I think I’ve always fucking liked you before I even realized it myself, _and _do you remember, we almost kissed at the clubhouse years ago, do you remember, is it just me, or was it just a fucking dream, _floating at the front of his mind. He swallowed around nothing, momentarily afraid of possible word vomit. “The… the same goes for you too, Rich,” he said quietly._

_“Yeah?”_

_“Of course, dumbass,” Eddie laughed, and when all the laughter and snorts died down, Eddie hummed. Richie didn’t roll back over, keeping his attention on Eddie, and while it seemed to light him on fire, it also seemed to just freeze him to the core._

_Eddie cleared his throat, thinking again, _I like you, Richie, I like you.

_They were scary words, especially for them. He recalled the bullies and the god awful slurs, the leper and what it _really_ meant and his mother’s words, her constant disgust. His heart sank to what seemed like the chilly depths of his stomach. Eddie bit the insides of his cheeks, his pulse hammering against his eardrums. He must have been shaking, because Richie had lifted a hand only to set it atop of Eddie’s own._

_They were scary words, but no less true. Eddie thinks, for a fleeting moment, of Richie’s hands cupping his face, telling him he’s braver than he thinks—and that can’t be right, he didn’t remember anything quite like that, but perhaps it was some sort of weird conscious desire. He was certain beyond a doubt that that was something Richie would do._

_“What’s up, Eds?” Richie whispered, his voice so soft, his eyes so wide and unguarded and Eddie had the underlying feeling that he would understand. He must understand. Richie Tozier must feel the exact same way, he must have the exact same feelings, the same fear, the same meadow of tender emotion coiled around his ribs, embedded solidly into his sternum. Eddie remembered how Richie would look at him, sometimes—how his touch would linger, how he would soften around Eddie, how when he told a joke, Richie would always look his way first._

It must be the same_, Eddie thought. _We feel the same. _He was so certain that he would cross his heart and hope to fucking die._

_And yet..._

_“I… like…” Eddie’s eyes went wide. _Like you. Like you. I like you, _he thought, desperate._ He could feel his throat close up. He could feel the panic in his chest. He could feel tears swell up in his eyes. Eddie blinked them away, cleared his throat, and feeling like a coward, he whispered, “Like… I like… uh… I like, think I have to shit.”

_Richie blinked, his eyebrows rising almost comically. The corners of his mouth twitched upward, but there was something deep in Richie’s eyes he could see that… seemed off, Eddie thought. “Oh?” Richie breathed.)_

Eddie swallows down what he knows is a scream. Surely, the universe was laughing at him; there could be no other explanation. He clears his throat and stares at the creases in his fingers. “Yeah,” he finally says. “I’ve just been, uh, thinking. Cats are good, I like cats, I’m not allergic to them, or like, uh...really anything, and…it’ll be nice to have some company. I guess.”

“You won’t come with when I’m on tour?” Richie asks.

“No, I mean, yes, some of them, sure, and I mean, we haven’t really talked about that much, Rich.”

Richie shrugs and then nods. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. We haven’t. You sure about a cat, Eds?”

“Yes. I’d like to adopt a cat. If, uh, that’s alright.” _Also, I’d like to formally inform you that I am divorced._

“Dumbass, it’s more than _alright. _You live here, too,” Richie says, rolling his eyes, and doesn’t get a chance to see the change in Eddie’s expression at the words. He digs his phone from his pocket, thumbs tapping away before scrolling with his index finger. “We can go to the shelter tomorrow, then? I don’t mind to head back out, so how about you get dressed and we can go to the pet store, pick up the essentials?”

“Yeah,” Eddie murmurs, biting the insides of his cheeks because _you live here, too,_ almost made his soul leave his fucking body. “Sounds good. I’ll get dressed after we get this done.” Eddie gives Richie a smile before he turns to put the rest of the groceries away.

*

And so, the next day, they become parents.

Kind of.

Eddie would have loved to take the whole shelter home, but he knew it was unrealistic. Eddie was talking to the shelter keeper, nodding along as she talked about tips and tricks for new cat parents, when Richie shuffled his way back toward him, the back of his hand covering his mouth, his face red with what Eddie fears is allergies, and with what Richie _knows_ is held back laughter.

“R-Rich? What’s up? What’s wrong?” Eddie asks, his hands automatically reading out. Worry creased his brow, because he never remembered Richie being allergic to cats or dogs—there had been enough neighbors with animals and strays here and there when they were kids that he just _knew_ without a doubt that Richie wasn’t allergic.

“E-Eds, c’mon, I f-found the _perfect_ kitty, just you _wait,”_ Richie gasps, and proceeds to tug Eddie along by the sleeve of his cardigan.

The worry disappears with ease and is replaced with wariness. He can’t help but say, “This can’t be good.”

“Oh no, Eds, baby. It is _so_ good,” Richie insists, and Eddie wonders why it sounds so ominous although Richie was snorting and laughing as he said it.

Eddie finds himself fighting a smile, though, as he gets tugged along, past doors with some empty cages and ones with curled up sleeping cats, past doors for meet and greets for the animals, until finally Richie comes to a stop, peeking in through the window and waving erratically before nodding just as excitedly. Richie glances back at Eddie and smiles widely.

“You’re in for it, Eds!”

“I’m nervous.”

Richie laughs and pushes the door open, tugging Eddie into the little meet and greet room. It’s a white room with two tall, branching cat towers on either side, littered with stuffed mouse toys and plastic balls with the little bells inside. A worker sits cross legged on the floor, waving a bright, fluffy orange feather on a plastic stick around and smiling widely whenever the cat lifts a paw to swat at it.

Eddie can’t help the way his heart immediately melts at the sight of the cat. The cat is a grayish white with swirls of black, its left paw a white mitten and eyes a deep green.

“His name is Orzo,” Richie tells him.

“Orzo.”

“Y-Yeah,” Richie mumbles, stifling a laugh.

The worker is too involved in playing with Orzo that she completely misses when Eddie hits Richie in the arm.

“You mean, like the fucking pasta?!”

Richie snorts, laughter spilling from his lips, and he lifts a hand to Eddie’s shoulder to keep himself upright. “It’s the universe, Spaghetti, the—the universe, man, it’s telling us that this cat is meant for us!”

Eddie shoves him away lightly and steps forward, squatting down, offering the back of his hand to the cat once the worker puts down the toy. He watches as the cat assesses him, his bright green eyes watchful as he steps forward carefully, and Eddie has to hold back _giggles_ when the cat’s whiskers tickle at his hand, when the cat’s nose brushes against his skin.

Finally, the cat ducks his head under Eddie’s hand and rubs the side of its face there.

“We can change his name, can’t we?” Eddie asks.

“Of course,” the worker says with a nod.

Richie squats down as well, cooing and tutting as the cat rubs itself against Richie’s jeans only to turn fluidly and rub against Eddie’s jeans. “What name were you thinking, Eddie Spaghetti? Though, I mean, Orzo is such a good name.”

“Okay, _Richatoni_,” Eddie says, rolling his eyes and ignoring the way Richie says, _hey, good one._ He keeps his hand out, letting the cat rub against his hand and knock its head into it, and the feel of soft fur against his palm is actually quite calming, the sound of soft _meows_ already something soothing. Eddie tilts his head, a fond smile curving his lips as he watches the cat swat at a toy on the ground, then flop down on the ground only to hop right back up again because Richie waggled his fingers playfully at him. “I actually, uh, do have a name. Not sure what you’d think about it, though.”

“C’mon, let’s hear it then,” Richie coaxes, taking the feather toy from the worker since she looked at him with a pointed, disapproving look.

Eddie tugs at the collar of his purple polo and fiddles with the hem of the loose, gray cardigan he wore. He stays silent for a moment, watching as Richie smiles and plays with the cat, twirling the feather toy around like it’s an honest to God challenge, wiggling it teasingly on the floor only to lift it up in the air once the cat pounced.

“Uh,” Eddie sighs, and fixes his gaze on a pink plastic toy ball. “I was thinking about the name Stanley. Or Stan, or you know, both, either or. You know how names are given and uh, how nicknames come from the name. You know.” Eddie clamps his lips together because he’s fully aware he’s rambling and would very much like to stop.

He sees Richie pause out of the corner of his eye as the worker in the room with them sits there with a blank face. Eddie cannot thank her enough for her silence, as well as the neutral look on her face. Finally, Richie looks over to Eddie, and props his jaw against the heel of his hand with a smile growing on his face. “Yeah, I… I like that, actually,” he says, and then tears his gaze from Eddie to focus on the cat. He points a finger at him, and waggles it. “Okay, Stanley the feline, you’re coming home with us.”

“Oh, thank god. I thought you were still going to try to give him a pasta name.”

“No, I’ll definitely give him one,” Richie tells him, and pulls Eddie up along with him. They nod their thanks to the worker, who assures them the cat will be up there waiting for them shortly after they sign the necessary papers. He looks over to Eddie and gives him a toothy grin. “I just couldn’t think of another type of pasta that started with _S _on the spot_._”

*

The first thing Richie does in the car is take a picture of Stanley Orzo “the Cat” Tozier-Kaspbrak in Eddie’s arms and send it to the other Losers in the group chat.

**[richie]: **we officially have a child, losers

**[bev]: **omg! what a handsome boy

Richie laughs, and shows Eddie the text. Eddie rolls his eyes, and Richie says, “Don’t worry babe, I’ll defend your honor.”

**[richie]: **are you hitting on my man or complimenting our new son

**[ben]: **I think she was complimenting the cat, Richie.

**[richie]: **mine and eds son, you mean

**[bill]: **seconded, your son for sure

**[richie]: **eds said shut up. he will probably say in an hours time he didnt but believe me when i say he did

**[bev]: **i mean, eddie, ur just as handsome, i understand WHERE the cat got it from

**[mike]: **She is right.

**[richie]: **rude

**[mike]: **Did you name the cat, guys?

**[ben]: **Yeah! What’s the name?

Richie looks over to Eddie as he relays every message and Eddie just scratches under Stanley’s chin and shrugs with a smile. Richie smiles back just as widely.

**[richie]: **well you know. not to steal the spotlight or anything but

**[richie]: **we actually named him stanley, stan for short, stanley orzo ‘the cat’ tozier-kaspbrak for the times im sure he will be in trouble.

It’s an awkward, stress inducing wait before the flood of texts come piling in.

**[bev]: **guys! thats actually really sweet. like, really really sweet

**[bev]: **orzo?

**[ben]:** Yes. It’s very thoughtful.

**[richie]: **youre embarrassing us

**[richie]: **orzo, yea, its MEANT to be

**[bill]: **how did you guys know i named the main character in my book after stan? technically it’s me with the spotlight guys stop feeding his already inflated ego

**[ben]: **Big Bill, you’re the best.

**[bill]:** it is sweet, though. i think he’d like it, richie

**[bill]:** im taking that seriously, ben, so thanks

**[richie]: **you are writing a book billiam, not birthing a child

**[bev]:** beep beep richie

**[richie]: **c’mon, bev, what did i say? thanks tho. from eds too, thanks

**[mike]:** It fits, I think. The cat looks…strangely polite.

**[mike]: **Orzo, like the pasta? That’s kind of funny.

**[bill]: **bet eddie didn’t think so

**[richie]: **yeah man aint it hilarious.

**[richie]: **quiet, billiam

**[ben]: **You guys should get him a tie or something.

**[mike]:** Does he act like him, you think?

**[richie]: **yeah. stan the man remains the best, ya know

**[richie]: **and so is this cat, i think.

**[richie]: **the best. theyre both the best

*

“This is the garage,” Richie says in a booming announcer voice. Eddie rolls his eyes, cradling Stanley in his arm as he shuts the car door with his free hand. In the dim lighting of the garage, the keys are jingling, and there’s a loud _ouch,_ and Eddie wonders if he will get a headache at the amount of times he’s rolled his eyes in the past two hours. “Now, I’m getting the keys for the door that lets us walk into the house through the garage because your other father says it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

“Which I’m right about, and I’m sure you agree with me, don’t you, Stanley?” Eddie asks as Richie unlocks the door. Stanley the Cat blinks up at Eddie slowly. “_Meow_? Oh, thank you, you sensible feline. See? He agrees, Rich.”

Richie clambers up the steps and moves aside so Eddie and their cat who is also their _son_ could come in as well. He shuts the door, locking the deadbolt with a hum. “That wasn’t a very convincing meow, if you ask me.”

“Oh, it was very real.”

“Sounded too human.”

“It definitely wasn’t,” Eddie insisted, his poker face on point.

“It wasn’t? Huh, _oookay._” Richie plays along, simply because it’s a very _them _thing to do_._ “Then, it sounded like you blackmailed him with the fish flavored treats we got him.”

“I would never,” Eddie says with a solemn shake of his head.

It’s Richie’s turn to roll his eyes, smiling wide. “Well, come on, Spaghetti, put him down.”

“He’s very soft. I don’t want to. Think the bed is big enough for me and the cat? You can take the couch, can’t you?”

“Eds, please, don’t wound me so. He has to leave the nest _sometime._”

Eddie rolls his eyes, but squats to the floor and lets Stanley hop from his arms. They all stand there, two human men and a feline with a swishing tail, until Stanley crouches low to the floor and ventures forward to exploration. The tip of his tail flicks left to right as he hops onto the couch, then to the floor, and _then_ into the kitchen.

In the silence, they hear little _laplaplap_s of Stanley drinking water.

“He’s cute,” Eddie murmurs.

“He takes after me.”

“Didn’t Bev say it was me?”

“I’ll let you think it, then, babe.”

Eddie laughs and toes off his shoes, leaving them on the mat at the door. He walks forward and slumps against Richie’s side, emotion flooding his entire core. He can’t even be irritated that Richie hadn’t taken off his shoes. “Thanks,” he whispers.

Richie raises an eyebrow, but tilts his head to rest his cheek to the crown of Eddie’s head, regardless. “There’s nothing to thank me for, Eds.”

Eddie hums as he shifts so he’s facing Richie. He buries his face in Richie’s chest, looping his fingers in the belt loops of Richie’s jeans. Richie doesn’t fight his smile, unabashed in the way it almost threatens to hurt his cheeks. His hands roam, and after a moment Richie’s got his hands in the pockets of Eddie’s long cardigan, inclining his head so he’s able to bury his nose in Eddie’s hair, so he’s able to smell his shampoo and the natural scent that is entirely _Edward Kaspbrak._

Richie inhales deeply, smiling as Eddie shuffles closer, opting to stand on his tip toes so he’s able to bury his face in the curve where Richie’s neck meets his shoulder. It’s relaxing, comforting, something so simple yet incredibly intimate at the same time. It feels like electricity, like any minute they are going to zap each other and laugh and laugh and laugh until they lean toward each other, their lips like opposite sides of a magnet.

It’s as Eddie’s inching back to kiss Richie that he remembers the neatly cut open envelope and the paper that is so precisely folded in half, the very same one that is the finalization of his divorce. Uncertainty settles in his bones, coursing through his veins, and Richie must sense this, because he’s got a look on his face that Eddie’s seen before, young and old.

_(“Eds? Eds? You okay?” Richie’s whispered frantically, his eyebrows knitted, the corners of his mouth turned down in a deep frown. “You okay, Eddie? Look at me, Eddie! Look at me!”)_

“You okay there, Eds?” Richie murmurs, his brows creased with worry, his lips turned down in a frown.

“Yeah,” Eddie mumbles, and decides against the kiss although it was the one thing he desperately wanted. Confliction settles in his chest—the words should be easy to say. He’s said _I love you,_ he’s said, _It’s you, Richie, it’s you _so surely, the talk of divorce and his perhaps not so innocent wants should be just as easy. He feels thirteen again, he feels sixteen again, he feels like he’s eighteen and it’s the week before prom and all he wants to do is tell Richie that he wants him to be his _date. _“Just, uh, maybe we should show Stanley where the litter box is,” Eddie says.

“Good point,” Richie laughs as he pulls away, but he slides a hand down Eddie’s arm, and threads their fingers together. “Wouldn’t want him to piss on the rug, would we?”

Eddie smiles before he wrinkles his nose, allowing himself to be tugged by Richie to find Stanley. “Definitely not.”


	4. love is old and wild and will always burn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and, the end!
> 
> I really enjoyed writing this. it's my longest fic yet, and while it isn't entirely plotty, I still love it dearly, and I hope all the people who has read this also loved it, and keep loving it just as I will. This is also my first reddie fic, and while there are more to come, and while this post canon fix it type of deal is something everyone has done, I still love this fic that I created a lot!
> 
> so, shout out to all my friends who have supported me, shout out to everyone who has been keeping up with this! It really means a lot to see kudos and comments and bookmarks. It's such a simple thing but it honestly means the world.
> 
> Anyways, this is it! Please, enjoy, and thank you for reading.
> 
> chapter title is from natural affair by the growlers. (also, all of the chapter titles came from THE GROWLERS songs, please check them out!)

It’s well into the evening when the household settles down. Stanley the Cat seemed to be feeling comfortable (he had only hid _once,_ and that was only because Richie had hollered and screamed when Stanley had jumped onto the desk that was littered with his hand written material, but it was nothing a shake of the treat bag couldn’t fix). Stanley also seemed to understand the concept of the litter box, which Eddie was extremely thankful for.

“He takes after me, I’m telling you,” Eddie had said, to which Richie rolled his eyes at and said, “Eds, please, I know how to use a toilet too, he could take after either of us.”

Stanley had explored the entire house with Richie and Eddie hot on his tail, sniffing little nooks and crannies and staring up into the air as if he _saw_ something, which was rather unsettling, but they chose to ignore it and say it was just dust in the room floating around. It’s when they find Stanley lying in the recliner in the living room, on the folded gray cardigan Eddie had worn earlier that day, that the two of them finally relax.

Eddie sighs and gestures to where their cat slash son was curled up into a ball. “You know, we got him that fucking strawberry house bed thing for him to _sleep in, _and he must know that, and he must already be in his rebellious stage since he decided to sleep on my _dirty_ cardigan. Maybe he really does take after you.”

Richie’s laugh is like a bark. “The strawberry bed is purple, babe. He must know that it’s silly, and that strawberries aren’t purple. Plus, I don’t know, maybe your cardigan is like a security blanket for him now or something. It’s not even that fucking dirty, Eds.”

“I doubt he can tell what color the strawberry is. And fuck you, the strawberry is _cute_,” Eddie says. He can’t help the smile at tugs at his lips. “I guess you’re right about the… security blanket thing.”

“It’s cute, all of it is cute,” Richie sing songs, reaching to brush his knuckles against Eddie’s arm, and then he laughs as another thought comes to him. “This must be what new parents feel like.”

“That’s what we are, aren’t we?” Eddie laughs, and rolls his shoulders.

Richie looks over expectantly after he hums in agreement. “Is your back bothering you?”

_No,_ is the truthful answer. Eddie pretends to think about it, and while he’s thinking, he remembers the huge white envelope, remembers how he had carefully refolded the letter within upon reading that his divorce went through. _I’m divorced, Richie,_ he thinks, and has to swallow down the urge to say it. Eddie was aware, of course, how _badly_ he needed to say it; he was aware of the fire lingering beneath his skin, the desire and want within the very marrow of his bones.

And yet, something else lingered deep within.

Fear? It was probably fear, or perhaps something softer like apprehension, but the suspicion in and of itself made Eddie almost sick to his stomach. There was no need for _fear_—Eddie loved Richie, and Richie loved Eddie, it was as simple as that, as real as _that_. They _loved _each other, ever since they were kids, and now, decades later, it all made sense. It was so easy to piece together every tiny show of love that had happened between them. At the quarry and in the clubhouse, in the halls of the school and in the greenery of the woods, love was nestled there, between the horror and the doubt, between the joy and the laughter and every little single thing in between.

In every crack and broken splinter, love was there; be it _love_ itself, or something more adolescent like a _crush,_ like a flutter of butterflies behind the knobs of their ribs.

Eddie exhales sharply, his eyes wide with intense emotion. He clears his throat and tries to play it off, and wonders if Richie buys it. He’s not a very good actor; he never had been. “Yes,” Eddie mumbles, and does his best to give a sheepish grin. “Think you can, uh…”

“Oil ya up, Eds? Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Richie tells him as he hoists himself up from the couch.

“Asshole,” Eddie laughs, and follows Richie into the bedroom.

He changes into shorts quickly as Richie goes into the bathroom, using the light that floods from the bathroom to fold his jeans neatly before setting them aside. His fingers linger on the hem of his polo, and Eddie wonders what this emotion is. Embarrassment, or maybe that same sense of apprehension, that wasn’t too anxiety riddled?

“Stupid,” he mutters under his breath, and pulls the shirt over his head.

“I’ll never get tired of you taking off your clothes.”

Eddie jumps at the sound of Richie’s voice before turning around only to glare at him, and Richie just laughs.

“Don’t look at me like that, Eds. A guy can’t _help_ himself,” Richie sighs dramatically and lets his gaze linger, and maybe that stirs up more heat in the pit of his stomach than Eddie would like to admit. Eddie watches as Richie turns on his heel, calling from bathroom, “come on, then. The kid is asleep; let’s take care of that scar.”

“The _kid,_” Eddie snorts with a roll of his eyes. He follows, though, his smile a barely there curve of his lips. “The _kid.”_

“Yeah, Eds, our kid. The kid of all kids out there, the catch of ‘em all, the light of our _lives._”

Eddie looks at his own smiling reflection as he stands in front of the sink, shaking his head. He looks… different, and it’s not just because of the facial hair he let grow. Eddie thinks that he looks healthier, happier, less tired, his skin not as pale. Were those freckles? He hadn’t seen _those_ in decades.

He keeps staring, studying his own reflection until Richie moves behind him, eyes flicking up naturally to meet Richie’s gaze in the mirror, and suddenly it’s strangely embarrassing. Eddie offers a small smile and then he averts his gaze downward, and it doesn’t help that Richie’s still smiling in the reflection, right behind him—his hair a mess and his glasses the tiniest bit crooked. Eddie focuses on the little tub of cocoa butter that was already open and ready to go, on the gauze and the medical tape.

It was all rather pointless.

He wondered if Richie knew that, too.

No matter if it were pointless or not, no matter if Richie knew of the fact or _not_, it didn’t stop Richie from reaching from behind, his front a barely there warmth against the bare skin of Eddie’s back. Eddie doesn’t tense at the coldness of the ointment, but he almost tenses at the way Richie’s fingertips all but gently smooth over the scar.

“It looks better,” Richie muses from behind.

Eddie keeps his gaze down because, well, he kind of feels like an idiot. He can’t bring himself to look at Richie, even if it were only a reflection. “Yeah?” he hums, the strain in his own voice so obvious to his own ears. “That’s good. It just…itches, you know.”

Richie nods, and says, “That must suck, Eds.”

Eddie shrugs a shoulder and opts to say nothing else. He tries not to focus on the feel of Richie’s fingers, tries not to focus on the warmth that radiates toward his own body. Eddie wrings his hands momentarily before bracing them on the edge of the sink, just to move, just to focus on the shift of muscles that makes it possible to do so.

_I’m so stupid I’m so stupid I’msostupid,_ he thinks, much like a mantra.

Richie’s reaching for the roll of gauze now, their skin brushing together, and it suddenly feels so simple, then. A casual brush of skin—Richie’s arm grazing against Eddie’s own, and it is _so_ comforting; a gentle reminder, a natural gesture that indicates that such a touch does not, _should never,_ bring about the coiling heat of shame, or self disgust, or thoughts about how fiercely his heart pounded was surely unnatural and downright _weird._

Instead, such a normal interaction brings about a trickling warmth; it causes butterflies to awaken in the pit of his stomach, and it makes the corners of his lips turn upward in an automatic, easy, _fond_ smile.

It’s simple to say now, oddly enough. For some reason, the words flow easily, all in one smooth, even breath: “Richie. I’m divorced.”

Their eyes meet in the mirror. Eddie’s focused on Richie, but he can see the way his own face seemingly catches fire and how bright his own eyes are. Richie blinks once, twice, a fourth and _seventh_ time before he cracks the tiniest smile that Richie Tozier had ever smiled.

“Yeah, Eds,” he sighs, his smile still so stupidly perfect. His hands work on Eddie’s back still; there is the soft sound of the roll of gauze unraveling, and then the feel of the fabric sticking to his back. “I know.”

“Oh, good,” Eddie murmurs, averting his gaze, and then he backtracks what’s been said. Suddenly he feels dizzy, because he’s sure this had happened before too—perhaps not with Richie, but it had _pertained_ to Richie, like everything in his teenage mind _had_, and—_what the hell,_ Eddie thinks incredulously.

He inhales deeply, coughing wildly because he just went a good minute without breathing; the burn in his lungs tells him so. His head snaps up, his mouth hangs open accusingly, and he gasps, “What the _fuck_ do you mean_, _you_ know?”_

_(“What’s this about, Eddie?” Beverly asked, stubbing out her cigarette because she is a considerate person._

_Even with that thought, Eddie scrunched his nose, yet was too preoccupied with anxiety to really lecture her on the rate of lung cancer and the warning signs and how she really should stop smoking or else—“Uh,” Eddie mumbled, cutting off his own thoughts. He wringed his hands nervously, pacing back and forth in front of her, uncaring of the looks they were getting from passerby’s._

_He stopped pacing and turned to her, opened his mouth, and saw the glint in her eye that told him, strangely enough, that she already _knew.

_But, that couldn’t be possible. He’s sure he hid it well._

_Yet, was it so deniable? Was it so absurd that she could have seen through all of his tryings?_

_Eddie closed his mouth, swallowing the lump in his throat, and stepped forward to sit on the bench, beside her. She looked over expectantly, patiently, kindly. Beverly was always kind, through it all, achingly so, that Eddie thought it was rather strange. Surely, after everything, her kindness would get tiring, and yet here she was._

_He would miss her when she left in just a mere three days time. Perhaps that’s why he is so anxious, so frantic with tight heated emotion. Eddie had carved an _R _into the kissing bridge with a strange looking heart around it, courtesy of the awkwardness of the cast, and with that there, the whole world unknowingly knew, but no definite person would know for certain the intensity of the fire in his chest_._ But, with this, Beverly would—she would know the emotions for Richie that he carried and she would take it all the way to Portland with her._

_His feelings would travel in thought and in knowledge, even if the bud of them would not bloom in front of the boy that would always unwittingly water them._

_“I… uh, that is…” Eddie breathed in slowly. He exhaled just as slowly. Out of the corner of his eye, he could still see how soft her expression was, how void of hatred her eyes were. She knew—Beverly wasn’t an idiot, but he cannot help but wonder how long she’s known. Eddie thinks he could barf, right then and there, a gross mush of whatever the fuck healthy shit his mom had fed him an hour prior. “Beverly, I…I…”_

_“You gonna burst, Eddie?” Beverly teased, but her voice was airy and light. Vaguely, he registered that she was trying to calm him down, much like a certain Hawaiian shirt wearing boy would, and for a moment he felt grateful._

_Eddie glanced over at her and then pointedly fixed his gaze on the criss cross lacings of his shoes. The smile that curved his lips was small as he said, his voice just barely above a whisper, “Yeah, I just might.”_

_“Take your time.” She leaned over a bit, pressing the line of her arm against his, and somehow, _somehow,_ that was enough. It gave him bravery; it gave him all the courage in the world. He could have run to Richie’s house and screamed it over and over until Richie had no choice but to rush out to his front lawn and cover Eddie’s mouth with both hands lest the whole entire town of Derry hear._

_He needed no time, because in that moment, he felt utterly and irrevocably fearless._

_“I like Richie,” Eddie said. “I-I… I like him. Like, a lot. A lot, a lot.”_

_ “Yeah, Eddie,” Beverly hummed, the corners of her mouth twitching upward. She rolled the cigarette gently between her hands, thinking about the boy beside her whose feelings he showed in every action, in every look, in every quirk of an eyebrow or smile, and she wondered if he knew that she could see it clear as day. She then thinks about the boy that the boy beside her likes and how that boy, in turn, hid each emotion behind huge, dark rimmed glasses and strings of jokes that everyone rolled their eyes at or pointedly ignored, and she thought about how _he_ looked at _him_, and if that boy, too, knew that she could read him like a book. She thought about how these two stupid boys would look at each other when they thought no one was looking and how they always seemed to just simply miss each other. Beverly thinks that it’s strange, how much her heart aches for these two boys. “I know,” she said softly._

_“Oh,” he sighed with a nod, completely oblivious to Beverly’s thoughts, “good.”_

_A moment passed, and continued to pass, and pass._

_A butterfly danced in the wind past them._

_A child screamed somewhere to their right._

_Her words finally clicked, like two magnets clinking together deafeningly in an equally deafening silence._

_“What the _fuck_ do you mean, you _know_?!” Eddie screamed.)_

Richie smiles at the mirror, eyes on Eddie’s reflection, on his mildly horrified expression. He felt a bit bad, but Richie couldn’t help but tease him. “You think I’m stupid, Eds?”

Embarrassment coils in the pit of Eddie’s stomach. He turns sharply, ignoring Richie’s protests that the gauze wasn’t even tapped on yet, and he doesn’t even care that his sudden movement jerked the gauze right out of Richie’s grasp, causing it to roll outward onto the bathroom floor. “I-I don’t think you’re stupid. I mean, no, yeah, I sure fucking do, because more often than not you act like a total fucking buffoon, but no, I don’t think you’re…_stupid_,” he says lamely.

Richie tilts his head, his smile still so easy and seemingly carefree. He leans forward and takes Eddie’s hands in his own, rubbing the pads of his thumbs against the backs of Eddie’s hands. “You aren’t as slick as you think, Eds,” Richie tells him gently, almost as if he’s chastising. There’s a glint of humor in his eye that Eddie doesn’t miss.

Eddie’s almost too scared to open his mouth, but he does anyway. Carefully, he asks, “What… what are you talking about?”

Richie takes a step closer and Eddie doesn’t move, rooted to the floor. “You practiced saying it last night. Remember? We put the groceries away,” he begins to list off the events of the prior night. “We watched some TV while you made me look up the basic necessities a cat would need, and you made a list. We went shopping_,_ and then we came back _home,”_ he says the word ‘home’ very pointedly, because just the thought of the two of them calling this place their _home_ is thrilling, “unloaded bags _again,_ and we watched a movie and ate fajitas. You went to take a shower, and I went to just lie in bed since it was already getting pretty late anyways.”

Eddie nods slowly, a different shade of embarrassment prickling at the back of his neck.

“It was kinda funny, Eds,” Richie laughs here, but Eddie knows it’s all lighthearted. His eyes crinkle a bit, his smile is lopsided, and he looks so _boyish_ even with the pepper of gray, even with the light wrinkles. Eddie sees thirteen year old Richie Tozier in front of him and forty year old Richie Tozier all at once. It tugs at his heart, makes him feel stupidly gooey and warm. “I was just lyin’ there, Eds, all cozy and shit. You hadn’t turned on the water yet or anything, which wasn’t unusual, so I didn’t think much of it.”

Again, Eddie nods slowly. He maneuvers their hands, threads their fingers together, and squeezes as if he wishes he could imprint the mold of his hands into Richie’s.

“Then, I heard it,” Richie continues, voice all mystical. Eddie rolls his eyes fondly, but his heart is racing and he feels so silly. _Of course, _Eddie thinks, _of course, something like this would happen._ “’I’m divorced, Richie. I’m divorced.’ I thought for a sec, you were _actually_ telling me. So I got up. I was about to knock on the door, but then you mumbled some more, then the water started.” He shrugged.

Eddie releases a heavy breath. He focuses on their hands for a moment until his gaze flickers upward and stays locked on Richie. His smile is sheepish. “I, uh, I’m feeling pretty embarrassed.”

“It is embarrassing, but it’s cute, Eds. I’ve always told you that you’re cute, and every day you just prove it more and more,” Richie tells him earnestly. “It’s not a competition or anythin’, you know. You’ve been the cutest ever since I _first_ laid eyes on you. I’ll never forget it, the day I first saw you.”

“I hate you,” Eddie laughs, and slips his hands away from Richie’s grasp only to slide them up Richie’s chest, over the bump of his collarbone, following the curve of his neck and shoulder. He buries his fingers in the curls at the back of Richie’s neck, making slow circles with his fingers. In turn, Richie places a hand on Eddie’s hip and the other at the expansion of his ribs.

“You hate me?” Richie murmurs, laughter in the tilt of his voice with just a hint of light hearted taunting. “I don’t think that’s right.”

“Nah?” Eddie sighs and inches closer.

“Nah,” Richie says, and inclines his head so their foreheads touch. It’s warm and electric and it feels much like sparks are igniting between their skin at every brush of contact. “I think you _adore_ me, almost as much as _I_ adore _you._”

Eddie hums as if he’s thinking about it, but it falls through when he snorts with laughter. He moves his head from side to side, just to rub his forehead against Richie’s. Eddie retracts a hand from the base of Richie’s skull, sliding it forward until he’s able to rest his palm against the scruff on Richie’s cheek. He rubs his hand against the roughness, the corners of his lips twitching upward because of the simple fact it felt nice. Scratchy, almost ticklish, and dare he even think it, _perfect_.

“Richie,” Eddie says, just because he can.

“Eddie,” Richie says, just because he can.

“Richie. Richie.”

“Eddie. _Eds_.”

_“Rich.”_

Richie smiles at him, fond and small and crinkly eyed and it is something solely meant for _Eddie._ He leans back only to kiss the bridge of Eddie’s nose, and Eddie huffs with laughter, and says Richie’s name again and again until Richie ends up laughing, saying _what, what_.

Eddie cups Richie’s face in his hands, and Richie thinks he looks so incredibly wonderful and strumming with life, like this: happy, confident, maybe a bit embarrassed but his resolve shows through it all. He looks so right, Richie thinks, he looks so _whole_, so fucking unbeatable. Eddie grazes his thumbs against Richie’s cheeks, and says to him, “I have something to tell you.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Oh, definitely,” Eddie laughs, and brushes their noses together. He holds Richie’s face in his hands, and it’s so endearing, seeing the shadows of embarrassment on Richie’s face, and Eddie thinks _serves you right, trashmouth,_ before his thoughts dissipate into nothing but how much love he feels running through his entire body, deep within the very marrow of his bones. “It’s something huge, Rich.”

“As huge as my dick?”

“Don’t insult me. It’s way bigger.”

“_Hardly_ believable, but continue. I’ll hear ya out.”

Eddie snorts in spite of himself, rolling his eyes dramatically. He grazes his thumbs against Richie’s cheeks again, just because he _can,_ just because Richie furrows his eyebrows in such an endearing way, just because it fills Eddie with an endless stream of love and joy. Eddie feels like the tide; he feels like he’s going to crash into Richie at any moment and it will be perfect, it will be exhilarating, and it’ll have him coming back for more, and more, and more, undoubtedly. “I’m divorced, Richie.”

Richie hums approvingly, his hands rubbing Eddie’s waist aimlessly.

“Richie? Richie, I’m _divorced._”

“Yeah, Eds? I’m so proud of you,” Richie says, and it is genuine, and it is soft. “I’m proud of you, Eddie. Seriously. I’m so incredibly happy for you.”

Eddie laughs, high and ecstatic. “You’re proud of me. God,” he sighs, and thinks: _of course he’s fucking proud; of course he is, because he loves me and I love him and what the fuck, God, what the hell_.

“Of course I’m proud,” Richie says, and then, teasingly: “but I’m not God.”

Eddie chooses to ignore the last part. “I…Now, it… that is… _now,_ we…” Eddie stumbles for a moment, inching away from Richie as if it would grant him back half the brain he lost to his own thrill. He lets his hands slide down a bit, resting them against Richie’s biceps. There is no embarrassment, no shame, no hesitation, and nor is there any second guessing when he says: “I want you.”

“You have me, Eds. I’m yours.”

Eddie furrows his eyebrows, confused, because was Richie not reading between the lines? “N-No, I mean, I _want…_”

Richie’s hand comes up to cup Eddie’s cheek gently. “I know. And that’s what I mean,” Richie explains, sliding his hand so it’s against the side of Eddie’s neck. Eddie is warm and burning with life beneath his palm—he could just barely feel a pulse against his fingers, and it is just another reminder of what they’ve accomplished: having lost each other, only to come together once more, through all the broken bits… Richie can feel himself smiling before he even realizes it. “You have me, Eds. And I have you. Didn’t you know? We’re each _others_.” He says it like it is something magical, like it’s something you only see once in a lifetime, and it makes the oxygen in the room seem so much thinner.

“What the fuck?” Eddie gasps. He inches closer, simply because the moment seems to spark in front of his eyes, and he could _swear_ their coming together could possibly shake the whole atmosphere. _This is what it feels like, _Eddie thinks, _this is how it’ll always feel. _He feels breathless because it’s true, this is it. The moment is being pieced together into its final mold. Eddie has this inkling thought, that if he could, he’d go back in time to tell his sixteen year old self that Richie Tozier does in fact feel the same, that the endless field of emotion in his chest is reciprocated, embarrassingly so; and he wants to tell him,_ when that fucking prom comes rolling around the corner, remember you are brave, and you are not fucking delicate, and you have nothing to fucking fear at all because Richie Tozier would quite literally piss his pants on the spot if you asked him so why not go ahead and give it a try? _“D-Didn’t I know?” Eddie prompts, although he’s sure he knows.

He knows, just as well as Richie does—they know, they know, _fuck,_ they know all too well.

“I’d give you anything, Eds. Always would’ve, and it…” Richie has to stop here, overwhelmed with emotion. He blinks furiously, and vaguely Richie knows he shouldn’t try to fight the tears, and maybe a few slip by, and maybe he lets Eddie brush them away, and—no, _definitely._ Richie lets himself _feel_, he lets himself be soothed, and with Eddie right there, in front of him, it’s so easy to accept it now. A few tears definitely spill over, and he definitely allows Eddie to brush them away. When he speaks again, he sounds breathless, his voice strung and low and uncharacteristically quiet. “I-It…it _never_ changed, Eds.”

“Me too. Fuck. You know that, right? No matter…” Eddie trails off, his eyes wide with remembrance of snarky, childhood comments, and Richie must see it, must remember the same things, because he just chuckles and nods. Eddie swallows against the lump in his throat, and places his hand against Richie’s cheek. It still feels as perfect as it did moments ago. “It never changed,” Eddie repeats, and then he inches impossibly closer; close enough that their breath mingles, close enough that when Eddie speaks next, their lips brush with the movement. “I’d give you anything, too.”

When they finally meet in the middle, everything else seems to blur together. It’s soft and sweet and unbearably tender—small, open mouthed kisses and lingering touches, little fits of laughter because they’ve bumped noses or because Richie’s trying to guide them _out_ of the bathroom without separating and Eddie accidentally runs into the doorframe. It’s gentle, and full of affection, but there is an underlying sense of urgency that perhaps shouldn’t be there, yet it fits right in with every other emotion that is coiled, _woven,_ around their bones.

Eddie’s walking backwards, unwilling to tear himself away, but the same could be said for Richie. They seem to be melted into each other, but perhaps that’s just the _overgrowth _of the meadows in their hearts, curling around the both of them, ensuring they do not lose each other again. Eddie buries a hand in Richie’s hair, tugging gently, and Richie smiles into the kiss, breathless and so full of love and Eddie gasps because he’s _falling, falling,_ inwardly and outwardly all at once.

Richie just barely prevents himself from squishing Eddie, his hand burying into the mattress while the other is curled against Eddie’s ribcage. Eddie looks up at him, and Richie looks down at him, and _it’s_… would it be so cliché to call it perfect?

“Richie,” Eddie murmurs, smiling lopsidedly. He scoots backwards on the bed, reaching for Richie’s shirt, tugging him along. Richie follows him, heart racing because there Eddie is, laid back against the pillows, in the middle of their bed, and when he spreads his legs only to tug Richie even _closer,_ it’s almost over then and there. “Richie,” Eddie says. He sounds as wired as Richie feels.

“Eddie…” Richie can’t help it—he laughs softly, only a little, yet somehow it still sounds a bit hysterical. “Sorry,” he says quickly, leaning back a bit to cover his mouth with the back of his hand only to wipe his eyes in what he hopes is stealthily. It isn’t surprising that the back of his hand comes back wet, eyes stinging behind his glasses. Richie lets out another laugh, low and strained. “It’s, uh, just—sorry.”

“No…” Eddie shakes his head. He can see the glint of tears in Richie’s eyes, but he doesn’t say anything about it. “I, uh, I get it. I do. It’s surreal, right?”

“Yeah. I never _thought_… before, I mean,” Richie corrects himself, shaking his head. He stays upright and extends his hands, smoothing them over Eddie’s calves, and if Eddie feels his hands shaking, he doesn’t mention it. Richie is almost too afraid to trail his hands upward, but he stomps the feeling down and focuses on the love and the adoration and the warmth. His eyes still burn, tears threatening to spill, but Richie tries his best to reign in the feeling. He trails his hands upward, slipping them underneath the fabric of Eddie’s shorts, and _god,_ Richie thinks, _how am I gonna last,_ and that’s when he notices the tent between Eddie’s legs, and thinks once again, _how am I gonna fucking last._

“Have you… done this before?” Eddie asks quietly.

Richie bites the insides of his cheeks when Eddie’s hands come into his vision. He’s still got his hands on Eddie’s thighs, underneath the shorts, and then there are Eddie’s hands, right on top of his, the only thing separating his palm to Richie’s knuckles being the shorts. “You mean sex with a man, a woman?”

Eddie shrugs. “Either.”

“Tried dating women, found I really didn’t like it, so I never forced myself find out if the sex would be more enjoyable,” Richie says. Eddie moves his hands to his waistband, tucking his thumbs beneath the elastic, and Richie wants to collapse. A bit unwillingly, Richie slips his hands from Eddie’s thighs and tears his shirt off before saying, “I had sex with… a few guys. Nothing ever serious…fuck, Eds, don’t give me that look, they weren’t _one night stands,_ just…” Richie shrugs, messing with his shirt before he throws it somewhere over his shoulder. He wants to say, _they weren’t you,_ or _they weren’t who I always wanted,_ but he doesn’t, though he’s sure Eddie knows regardless, somehow, of the nameless figure he’d been hung up on for thirty years. “…nothing serious.”

Eddie hums thoughtfully as he watches Richie move. He wants to comment about how Richie throws his shirt on the floor, but refrains from it, because the arousal is thicker than the need for things to be in order. He’s still got his thumbs hooked into the elastic of his shorts and in all honesty Eddie would love to take them off already, but he refrains.

“You?” Richie mumbles.

Eddie rolls his eyes. “The only woman I’d been with was… my ex-wife, and it…it _wasn’t_…” he shakes his head, and Richie squeezes his knee quickly just to convey he ultimately understood. “I messed around with a guy when I was in college. It wasn’t like I remained Ma’s _little boy,_” Eddie tells him, averting his gaze momentarily before forcing himself to look at Richie again. He can just barely make out the tent in Richie’s jeans, and for a moment he thinks it’s unfair that his erection is so obviously displayed. “It almost went farther, but…” he trails off, shaking his head again and says, “Can you take off your pants?”

Richie blinks rapidly, taken aback, and then laughs all in the span of five seconds. He doesn’t say anything as he moves to settle on the edge of the bed, slipping his jeans and boxers from his waist. Richie takes his time, pushing them down his thighs and kicking his feet so they land haphazardly on the floor, and Eddie wants to snap at him for taking so long, but he can’t bring himself to simply because he can see the tense set of Richie’s shoulders.

_He’s nervous,_ Eddie thinks, and then breathes in deeply, feeling the tremor of his own chest, and thinks: _so am I._

A moment passes between them—Eddie in the middle of the bed, aching in his shorts, thumbs hooked in the elastic like he’s ready any fucking second (which, he is); Richie naked on the edge of the bed, staring unblinkingly at the floor as if it were the most interesting thing in the room. “So, uh, I mean.” Richie coughs into his fist, turning to look at Eddie. He raises a hand, and gestures to Eddie’s body. “I mean, you never…?”

Eddie rolls his eyes and decides he just can’t take it anymore. He lifts his hips off the bed, shoving his shorts and boxers down in one go, and when he hears Richie’s breath hitch from beside him, Eddie tries to fight off the flush that crawls up his neck and is unfortunately unsuccessful. Eddie forces all his thoughts aside as he, too, throws his garments unceremoniously to the floor. “Just…_me_,” is all Eddie says, purposefully, and hopes to God Richie catches on.

“J-Just you,” Richie repeats, and then he groans and it goes straight to Eddie’s dick. “God. Just you? _Just you? _Fuck, Eds, I’m only human, you can’t fucking say that to me.”

Eddie snorts, lips twitching upward as he spreads his legs again and reaches out with his arms. Only for a moment does he feel silly doing that, but the feeling disappears quickly as Richie shifts to crawl toward him. It’s when Eddie’s got his hands on Richie’s forearms and his knees against Richie’s hips does he say, “It’s been…_a while_. I’d show you, though, but I’d rather… uh, you. You know. I’d rather…you.”

“Yeah, no, I mean, uh,” Richie laughs breathlessly and finds he isn’t sure where to look. Eds is toned, stupidly so, and there’s a light patch of hair in the center of his chest, and the trail of hair gets increasingly darker the further Richie’s eyes go _down,_ and it’s too fucking much. He wills his hands not to shake as he places them on Eddie’s hips, thumbs pressing into his hipbones just because in the moment, it felt like such an intimate thing to do. “I mean, you know what I mean,” Richie babbles, and he barely registers the fact Eddie’s hands are on him, sliding to the back of his neck.

“I know what you mean,” Eddie agrees, breathless, his own eyes taking in all he could in the dim lighting that comes from the bathroom. Richie’s not all smooth muscle and fine lines, but his hands are big and strong and his thighs are _full,_ and Eddie can feel the line of Richie’s dick against the inside of his thigh when he shifts, and _God,_ Eddie thinks, _I’m going to pass out_. Richie’s a bit hairy and he’s got moles and freckles scattered along his skin, and Eddie can vaguely remember where some of the specks on his skin were from when they swam in the quarry as kids. He skims his eyes along Richie’s chest and down to his stomach, and through the coarse hair, he can kind of see a freckle just above his belly button, a bit to the left.

It’s when Richie shuffles closer only to lean in to kiss at Eddie’s temple that Eddie says, “I love you.”

“You must love me if you’re gonna let me fuck you, Eds.”

Eddie rolls his eyes.

“I mean, I love you, and I’d let you fuck me,” Richie tells him seriously, lips against Eddie’s brow.

“What?”

“What? Huh? What’d I say?”

Eddie gives him a steady look. He’s surprised, above all else. “I mean, uh, really?”

Richie leans back and quirks an eyebrow. He slides his hand along Eddie’s thigh, applying a bit of pressure just so he can feel the flex of the muscles. Richie keeps his hand at the back of Eddie’s thigh, squeezing experimentally, and smiles when he sees the flush bloom a light pink on his cheeks. “Yeah, Eds, really. Whenever you’d want. It’s not like getting fucked by you doesn’t appeal to me.”

“_Lateraftersoontomorrow_,” is Eddie’s immediate, breathless, strung out response. He groans in what is a mixture of frustration, lust, and impatience. Eddie isn’t sure what to think about—Richie’s hips soon being pressed against his own, or what it would feel like to be inside of Richie. He spreads his legs wider, pressing a heel to the small of Richie’s back, and fights back a second groan when he feels what he _knows_ is Richie’s pre-come smearing against the crease where his leg meets his thigh, and he vaguely registers that his own dick is leaking just as much, if not worse. The way Richie’s looking at him is about to set him on fire, and the more the seconds tick by, Eddie can _feel_ the flame grow hotter and hotter. “C-C’mon, Rich.”

“Way ahead of ya, Eds,” Richie mutters quickly, and Eddie barely registers the fact Richie had already grabbed the small bottle of lube from the bedside drawer until he feels some of it drip, cold, against his thigh. He hisses with the shocking contrast in temperature, because _he is fucking on fire now,_ and Richie snorts before soothing him, and when he lowers his hand, _lower lower lower, _Eddie gasps and his hips stutter upward without his permission. “Tell me if it hurts,” Richie says.

“It doesn’t,” Eddie rasps, even though the initial sting was uncomfortable, “it _won’t._”

It stays like that for a while—Eddie grunting and his breath catching on his own moans as Richie fingers him, as Richie takes him apart. It’s good, Eddie thinks, way better than what his own fingers felt like; there’s much better leverage and he feels _fuller,_ and his cock twitches when he thinks about Richie being inside of him, filling him further, and Eddie rolls his hips down as Richie’s thrusting his fingers in and_—“again,”_ Eddie sighs, a small flit of laughter right behind his arousal.

“Anything, Eds,” Richie assures him, his free hand splayed wide on the inside of Eddie’s left thigh. He savors what he sees, taking his time: the shift of muscles, the trail of hair that leads to Eddie’s dick, the dark tip of _Eddie’s_ _dick, _the pre-come that leaks from the tip and onto the fine lines of his stomach_._ Richie works his fingers in steadily, curling them upward, muttering words of _you look so good, Eds,_ and _again, make that noise again babe, God, could you be anymore fucking perfect._ “Anything for ya, Eddie.”

Eddie twitches all over, bucking his hips upward, looking for contact but Richie just isn’t _close _enough, and he groans, reaching down to cover the hand that’s on his thigh with his own. “You,” Eddie demands.

“Me?” Richie parrots, tilting his head as if he doesn’t understand.

“_Yes,_ dipshit, you’ve been at it for how fucking long—“

“Eds,” Richie says seriously, “you just don’t get it. It’s totally hypnotic. You’ll know soon enough.”

Eddie groans, shaking his head although his smile was wide. “Please, don’t make me rethink this.”

Richie smiles but he doesn’t retract his fingers from Eddie. He works them gently, probing his prostate as he says, “You wouldn’t, though.”

Eddie rolls his hips and gives Richie a half hearted kick to his side. “No,” he agrees, his glare holding no heat at all. “I wouldn’t. So get up here.”

Richie just laughs, shifting so he’s balanced on his knees between Eddie’s legs. He sets his hands on Eddie’s thighs, squeezing here and there as he touches them—the soft skin of his inner thighs, the sensitive skin at the backs of his knees. Richie inhales deeply, overcome with a rush of emotion, and it must be more intense than usual, because Eddie looks up at him curiously. “It’s…” Richie shakes his head as if it would keep the tears at bay, and Eddie reaches up to push his glasses up his nose for him, “you know, all the…the wasted time.”

“It can’t be helped,” Eddie says in the softest voice he can muster. He trails a hand downward and curls his fingers around Richie’s wrist, tugging so he’s able to pry Richie’s hand from his thigh only to thread their fingers together. “Weren’t you the one who said ‘the only thing that matters now is now_’_?” Eddie asks, amused. He kisses Richie’s knuckles, smiling all the while. “It’s true, Rich. We’re here now.”

“Yeah.” Richie gives a small smile and nods a few times, murmuring something along the lines of _you’re right, Eds_. He rubs his thumb along Eddie’s hand and presses a kiss to Eddie’s knee before gently prying his hand from Eddie’s; he leans in, trailing his hand downward once again so it’s resting on Eddie’s thigh. Eddie cranes his neck, brushing his lips to Richie’s, and Richie lets a small laugh escape as he slides his hand to the curve of Eddie’s ass. _We’re here now,_ he thinks.

Eddie brings a hand to Richie’s face, shifting his hips as he presses a heel lightly to the small of Richie’s back and he hopes it conveys a sense of calming. The feeling of Richie against him—warm and real and emitting wave upon wave of affection, it’s enough to have Eddie choking on his own emotion. He wants to say something, anything, be it laughingly stupid or heart wrenchingly honest, but it’s gone before he even has a chance to piece words together. It’s electrifying to feel Richie’s hands brushing against sensitive skin, and when Eddie bends his legs so his knees are a bit closer to his chest and he feels the head of Richie’s dick nudging against him, he slides his hand to Richie’s shoulder and scrapes the blunt of his nails there.

“Tell me if it hurts,” Richie says, simply because he can’t help but say it, but Eddie breathes out a laugh regardless, simply because he _knows_. He wraps a leg more securely around Richie’s waist, encouraging him to press forward, and Eddie says, “you won’t _hurt_ me, Rich, _shut up_,” and then Richie’s lips are twitching upward as he eases his hips forward until he’s flush against Eddie, until he bottoms out and Eddie lets out a shaky moan and all Richie can do is mimic the sound.

It’s hot where their skin meets. Richie’s shoulders are shaking, with an effort to stay still or with intense emotion, Eddie isn’t sure. He reaches out, smoothing his palm against Richie’s bicep, and Eddie wants to say the way his hips roll upward is out of his control, but it isn’t entirely. Eddie laughs shakily as Richie twitches against him, and he can’t help but think once more, _this is what it feels like, this is how it’ll always feel. _He feels so wired on his own happiness, on his own pure _joy. _“Richie,” he murmurs, following the muscle of Richie’s arm down so he’s able to cover the back of Richie’s hand with his own. Their hands rest on Eddie’s thigh again as he says, “Richie, Rich, hey, look at me.”

“Uh,” Richie mumbles, his eyes tightly shut behind his glasses. “Sorry, it’s—it’s a lot, Eds, you—“

Eddie snorts, cutting him off. “You don’t have to tell me twice, Rich.”

It’s Richie’s turn to laugh shakily, and when he finally opens his eyes and meets Eddie’s gaze, it’s almost too much. The look in his eyes is undoubtedly familiar—he’s seen it before, countless times, throughout their childhood and their teen years, held back and so soft; at the restaurant back at Derry, at the Well House, in the hospital, brimming on the edge of bursting and still _so soft_. Eddie bites his lip, barely able to contain the moan that builds at the back of his throat. He shifts his hips again, looking at Richie without even blinking, and he offers the smallest, most hopeful smile and prays that Richie, too, _sees_ how he looks at him, how he’s always looked at him, just the same, held back and soft and dancing on the edge of overflowing. “Richie.”

“_Eds_,” is all Richie says before he tilts his hips back and eases in slowly. It’s something, Richie thinks, that he would never get used to—Eddie is beneath him, breathing in time with him, warm and alive and his mouth is open in a gasp, and it’s all because of him. Richie squeezes at Eddie’s thighs before trailing his free hand to Eddie’s torso, pressing his hand flat against his chest just to feel the beat of his heart. It’s as rapid as his own heartbeat that’s pounding in his ears.

Eddie rolls his hips, purposeful in the way he times the motion with Richie’s shallow thrusts. He digs a heel into Richie’s back and can’t help but shiver at every gentle touch from Richie’s hand—and it doesn’t make him feel delicate, or fragile, or as if he’s on the verge of shattering into a million pieces, although he’s sure that by now, they both hold that kind of influence over each other. “_Rich_,” he groans, breath catching on a moan because Richie’s touch is so light on his chest, fingertips brushing against his nipple; the sensations of Richie’s thrusts and his fingertips are making his mind cloud over, making every coherent thought dissipate into smoke.

It doesn’t take long for Richie to grow bold and it doesn’t take much for Eddie to encourage him. Richie grinds against Eddie, teasing and giving in almost immediately because Eddie’s moans and sighs undoubtedly do something to him. It’s difficult not to come undone at any given second with the intensity of Eddie pulling him in fogging his brain and the grip of Eddie’s hand on his arm setting fire to his own body. Richie’s reluctant to move his hand from Eddie’s, where they are settled on his thigh, but he does simply because he wants to feel _more_. Richie presses a kiss to Eddie’s knee and moves his hand to the crook of Eddie’s leg, pushing it forward, and the reaction from Eddie coaxes a groan from the back of Richie’s throat.

Eddie throws his head back, throat exposed, and he’s only mildly disappointed when Richie’s lips don’t make contact. He rolls his hips against Richie’s thrusts harshly, digging his nails into Richie’s skin, and Eddie wonders if Richie is doing this on purpose—angling back and shifting so his dick just barely brushes against his prostate. “Richie,” he groans, and reaches until his fingertips touch the side of Richie’s neck—it’s a stretch, but he makes it. Eddie curls his fingertips a bit, barely scratching at the skin there. “Closer.”

“Yeah, Eds, of course,” Richie murmurs automatically, the softness of his tone causing sparks to pool in the pit of Eddie’s stomach. Richie leans forward, shifting gingerly as he sets his hands into the sheets just underneath Eddie’s arms to balance himself. He nudges Eddie’s leg open with an elbow and grinds his hips against Eddie’s skin as he buries his face against Eddie’s neck.

When Richie laughs, a small huff of breath, Eddie can’t help but do the same. He wraps his legs around Richie’s waist, squeezing just to feel laughter against his skin again. Richie’s bottomed out—he’s inside of Eddie as much as allowed, and the sensation of the gentle tug and pull grind inside of him is almost too much. It’s hard to focus, so when Richie nips at his earlobe as if to gain his attention, Eddie has to groan and say, slow and careful so no word vomit tumbles out, “what was that, Rich?”

Even as he talks, Richie keeps the motion of his hips gentle and slow, and it’s a wonder how his voice is so even. He shifts his weight to his right arm so he’s able to trail his left hand wherever he pleased. “When we were kids,” Richie starts, shoulders shaking with unbidden laughter. “Remember, I always s-said… I always said I’d give you the stars.”

Eddie tries to snort, but he’s sure it comes out more like a wet cough.

“You’re so cute, Eds,” Richie mumbles, rubbing his hand against the curve of Eddie’s ribs. “Literally, the light of my life, the breath in my lungs.”

“_Rich.”_

Richie kisses at Eddie’s neck, angling his hips back so he’s able to thrust in instead of just grind against Eddie. “Eds. _Eds_, the blood in my veins.”

“Guh—_god,_” Eddie groans, shaking his head gently. He’s laughing, little hiccups that shake his whole body. Eddie buries a hand in Richie’s hair and keeps the other on the curve where his neck and shoulder meet. It’s a struggle to stitch the words together, but somehow he manages. “When did you—_uhhn—_b-become such a fucking _romantic_, Rich, _ah_—“

Richie leans back a bit, all his edges softened. His hand leaves the knobs of Eddie’s ribs and instead he wraps his fingers around Eddie’s dick; predictably, Eddie tightens around him and his whole body twitches, and it’s the best thing ever. Richie strokes Eddie’s dick almost lazily, keeping his thrusts and the motion of his hand easy and smooth because Eddie’s thighs twitch with the slow burning intensity of it. “Back… back at the, the Well House, I thought—“ he laughs breathlessly here, fighting against the way his brain wants to give way to the tingles of pleasure. _Too soon, _Richie tells himself. “—I thought that, when we were d-dragging you outta there, that, that our _blood_ was gonna mingle together, Eds.”

The sound Eddie makes is something between a laugh and a sigh, and he shakes his head, but his smile is easy and a bit bashful. “Fuck, that’s—“ he pauses momentarily at all the different sensations bombarding his body and tugs on Richie’s hair, “_embarrassing,_ Rich—but, but, God, it’s—“ Eddie can barely focus with all the sensations: being filled, Richie’s hand on his dick, stroking in time with his thrusts. “You—you’re, Richie, sometimes it’s like you’re the one that f-fucking gives me air to _breathe—_“

Richie snaps his hips forward, biting the inside of his cheek because the motion had pushed Eddie up, too. He’s close, too close, and Richie can’t help but curse at himself because he wants to make this _last _but he feels like he’s going to break any fucking minute. “Eds,” he gasps, wet and strained, “I already said you’re the breath in my lungs, you _can’t _just s-say that—“

“Fu_uu_ck you, fuck you, I’m c-close, Richie, I—“

“Me too, Eddie, _baby_, me too—“ It takes all he’s got, especially with the growing heat, but Richie slows his thrusts, deliberate in the way he inches out and eases back in; Richie is more than reluctant to lean away from Eddie, but when he does, it’s not by much. He rubs his thumb against the head of Eddie’s dick, skimming his gaze over the entirety of the moment: Eddie’s mouth open in a moan, his eyebrows narrowed, focused on the feeling; the dark, leaking head of his dick, and lower, to where they’re connected. The sight is exhilarating, and threatens to suck the breath right out of him. “_Eds—“_

Eddie jerks beneath him, nails digging into whatever bit of skin he could get his hands on. “There, there, Richie, more, _Richie, there—“ _he gasps, rolling his hips to meet Richie halfway, “_again, fuck, Richie—“_

“E-Eds, Eddie, I’m—“ Richie groans, hips stuttering mid-thrusts.

“Inside,” Eddie says.

“Wha—“

“I _mean _it,” Eddie hisses, high pitched.

“E-Eds—“

_“Richie—_“ The sound that escapes Eddie is priceless; strained and breathless with a tilt of laughter that fades into a stuttering moan as his whole body convulses. He feels it along his spine, a warm prickling sensation that ends up scraping against his entire body. Eddie doesn’t quiet register what’s going on, too focused on the high of his orgasm and the gasping from Richie above him. He’s aware of Richie’s fingers threading through his, aware of Richie leaning forward to bury his face in the crook of Eddie’s neck, aware of the tender, oversensitive sensation from where they are connected, and then there’s Richie’s voice telling him all sorts of things. _Love you, Eds, love you, I mean it, you are literally the beat of my stupid fucking heart,_ and Eddie laughs, lolling his head to the side to press kisses against the side of Richie’s head.

“Richie,” he mutters, groggy with pleasure and love and everything in between. “Richie. C-Come on, let go.”

Richie gasps against Eddie’s skin, hips slow and stuttering, and then his gasping cuts off into a groan, and Eddie can feel it inside of him. Warm, pulsing, and mildly disturbing, but there’s an inkling feeling he would never really hate the feeling. “E-Eds.”

“Rich,” Eddie laughs softly, and then he’s wrapping his arms around Richie and closing his eyes.

***

Richie wakes to the soft sounds of meowing and to a pair of paws kneading against his hip. Groggily, he opens his eyes with a groan, squinting around the room just as Stanley hops off the bed. Light filters in through the curtains, bathing everything in a faint orange glow, and he thinks that for a moment, it’s his favorite color.

At Stanley’s demanding meow from the doorway, Richie pulls himself from his thoughts and pats around the bedside table for his glasses. Once they’re shoved carelessly onto his face, he rolls out of bed gingerly, keeping his eyes on Eddie. Eddie stirs for a moment, groans a little, and then sighs before burying his head further into the pillow. Richie hears another demanding meow, and it has his lips quirking into a smile. “I’m comin’, kid, I’m comin’,” he assures quietly, picking up Eddie’s discarded shorts off the floor and pulling them on over his boxers. It’s kind of a tight fit, but it’ll do.

The floor is cold against his bare feet as he walks to the kitchen, Stanley leading the way with a few occasional looks back at Richie just to make sure he’s following. It’s really endearing, Richie thinks, and feels a swell of love for the cat they’ve gained as their son. He watches as Stanley comes to a stop in front of his bowls, sitting politely although the look in his eyes could send Richie to death. He saves the thought for later because he’s sure Eddie would get a kick out of it.

Richie scoops up food into a little plastic cup, padding across the kitchen to where their cat waits. “Come on, Stanley, sir,” Richie says, shaking the food above his head. “I can’t pour the food in with your paws in, too. Come on, dude, get out.” Richie laughs quietly and lowers himself to the floor so he’s balanced on the balls of his feet. Gently, he coaxes Stanley’s paws from the bowl and dumps in the food. Richie stands up, satisfied by the crunching sounds from below, and makes his way back to the bedroom.

Eddie’s still asleep when he slides back under the covers, rolling onto his side with his jaw propped up by the heel of his hand.

There’s something here, Richie feels, that lingers between them—familiar and enticing, but now it is so much more. It is sharp and bright and barely contained and he wonders fleetingly if it could _ever_ be tamed_._ Slowly, he reaches toward Eddie, who looks so relaxed in his deep sleep, and touches his fingertips to the scar that hides beneath his facial hair.

“Oh,” Richie mutters aloud, eyes widening behind his glasses, heart pounding in his ears. _This has happened before_, he thinks, and just like that, he remembers it clearly.

_(His heart pounded harder and faster than it had ever before—which was hilarious, really, considering the amount of times he’s had to run from Bowers’ remaining goons._

_After Eddie had excused himself to go to the bathroom, Richie stayed in bed, wide eyed and silent, his head full of an endless stream of thoughts. He felt a bit like a fool—who was he to get so hopeful? Richie had told himself, over and over, night and day, awake and dreaming, that he should be fine with what he and Eddie had; and yes, he was, so much, so much that it hurt, so much that it was painful sometimes to even be in the same room as him, to breathe next to him, to exist right beside him._

_He couldn’t get it out of his head. It replayed, and replayed, and fucking replayed like his own subconscious was laughing at him._

_Eddie’s eyes had been _on_ him, open and unguarded, and Richie had _seen_ something in his gaze which told him something huge, and yet it was gone just as quickly as Richie had seen it. Richie could see Eddie’s anxiety—his body a rigid line next to him, his fists clenched and shaking ever so slightly atop his stomach. The feel of a hand against his own was everything when he’d raised his own only to set it atop of Eddie’s. _

I… like…

_Eddie’s eyes had gone wide. Richie hadn’t imagined it. He could even see tears in his eyes before Eddie had stubbornly blinked them away. Hope had risen like a flame in his chest—bright and burning and Richie felt like he could possibly choke on the taste of it._

Like… I like… uh… I like, think I have to shit.

_And hope had been snuffed out quickly, painfully, but Richie couldn’t help the way his lips twitched upward in what he hoped was a smile. Did he look hurt? Richie wondered, because the look on Eddie’s face wavered when he had breathed out a small, _oh?

I’m a fucking idiot,_ he thinks, and not for the first time._

_Richie knew what the racing of his heart meant. He knew what the sweat building at the back of his neck meant. He knew what it meant when his hands itched to touched Eddie, when his body leaned toward Eddie of its own accord like some sort of gravitational pull. He knew what it meant when he ceaselessly chanted, _cute, cute, cute, _and draped his arm tightly around Eddie’s shoulders. Richie knew what it meant when he looked at Eddie and all felt right in the world._

_His inner turmoil ended nearly forty minutes ago, when Eddie came back from the bathroom and climbed back on top of the covers beside Richie right after turning on the little beat up radio that Mike’s grandpa had fixed up for him._

_Now, they laid in Richie’s bed once again, side by side. _

_This time, however, Eddie had fallen asleep._

_Richie couldn’t stop himself from glancing at Eddie every few seconds, plagued with thoughts of _should I wake him, _and _but he fell asleep for a reason, he’s tired. _It’s warm, almost suffocating, but Richie welcomes it wholeheartedly simply because this was _their _warmth. It was something that was undoubtedly real and he would think about it for months, Richie’s sure—the feel of Eddie’s arm against his, the soft sound of each inhale and exhale, and the smell of apple scented hand soap._

_“…Eds?” he whispered._

_When no response came, he carefully turned onto his side like before, propping his head up with the use of his hand._

_“Eddie?” Richie whispered again, just for good measure, but Eddie continued to breathe deep and even, fingers twitching in his sleep. He feels a tender smile curving his lips before his brain registers he’s even done it. It wasn’t often he could see Eddie unguarded and asleep like this—his edges softened, his mile a minute mouth open instead to soft snores and not the usual string of rants. Richie watched him for a moment longer, his heart racing, his own fingers twitching._

_It’s the song that started to play on the little beat up radio that catches his attention, pulling his mind away momentarily from his own meadow of blooms._

_The instrumentals fade in, and it’s instantly familiar—he’s listened to this song more than once, twice, a hundred twenty four times, and each time he’s thought of Eddie. Richie felt his heart quicken even more and wondered for a moment if it were even humanly possible for a heart to beat that fucking fast._

Whenever I’m alone with you…

_Richie knows the next lyric better than his own home address. He mouthed the words to the side of Eddie’s face as they played on the radio._

You make me feel like I am home again.

_He cannot help but think that it’s true. After all, home was never a place; it was always a feeling, a person—a boy. Home was always the pungent smell of laundry detergent and the rough feel of the fabric of a fanny pack. Eddie was solid and warm and alive and bright and more than Richie could ever hope to have, be it near or entirely._

You make me feel like I am whole again.

_A rush of emotion swells in Richie’s chest. He felt his eyes tear up behind his glasses—hot tears burning his eyes. He turned and shifted to lay on his back, careful as to not wake Eddie up even in the midst of his own emotions._

Whatever words I say…

It’s true, _Richie thinks, squeezing his eyes shut so tightly as if the tears would simply go away with the force of it, _it’s true._ No matter the crudeness, no matter the teasing, for all its worth, it’s true—_

I will always love you, I will always love you.

_Richie bit the inside of his lip so hard that his head filled with a gross crunching sound and his mouth filled with the coppery taste of his own blood. His heart pounded so hard he’s surprised that the Earth hadn’t shaken with its might. He felt breathless, and it hurt—like he was in space, floating without gear among the stars and black holes and meteors and aliens and whatever the hell else was up there. _

Whenever I’m alone with you, you make me feel like I am free again.

_“Yes,” he choked out, the thorns in the meadow of his chest digging into his heart. Richie wondered why it hurt so much, why although he loved Eddie so wholeheartedly and wonderfully and with all that he was, that it hurt so fucking much. Wasn’t that a lie? Didn’t he know? It was confusing to be sixteen going on seventeen and being in love with your best friend, your childhood friend, the one constant in your life that made everyday a little better, a little brighter._

I will always love you… I will always love you…

_Richie reached out of his own accord, touching Eddie’s cheek with his fingertips only to jerk his hand back almost immediately. He could feel his face flush, fiery and bright. His fingertips felt like they’d been shocked, left with a tingly sensation that wasn’t too unpleasant. Richie cradled his left hand in his right, against his chest, because the feeling that seemed to burn against his fingertips was precious._

_The song faded out and another began._

_He laid there, cradling his left hand until Eddie woke up twenty minutes later.)_

Richie looked at his fingertips, wide eyed. It was easy to recall the sensation now that he _remembers_ what it felt like—warm, tingling, like your arm had fallen asleep and you’ve got to wiggle your fingers to wake it back up again. He laughs a bit, glancing at Eddie, who still sleeps just as peacefully as he had two minutes prior.

What bothers Richie now is the lyrics to that _song._ He remembers most of it now that the memory unraveled for him, but…

Carefully, he shifts on the bed, reaching again for the bedside table for his phone. He unlocks it quickly, bringing up the search engine, and types in_ lovesong the cure lyrics._

The lyrics come up immediately, and in the back of his mind, Richie can hear the instrumentals, smooth and so nostalgic.

_You make me feel like I am home again…you make me feel like I am whole again._

Richie smiles, overcome with a familiar rush of emotion as he reads the next line.

_Whenever I’m alone with you…you make me feel like I am young again…_

He glances over at Eddie—the gray in his beard, the creases at his eyes, all the telltale signs of age. Richie thinks of himself, the gray at his temples, of the ache in his back, and shifts gears to think about the giddiness in the pit of his stomach. Love, affection, adoration, innocent yearning that stemmed from childhood—it was all there, nestled in his chest, as if he were eleven, thirteen, sixteen, _nineteen_ again. It was easy to feel young, with Eds by his side.

_Whenever I’m alone with you…you make me feel like I am fun again…_

They had always had fun together as kids, but now it was different, yet at the same time it wasn’t all that different at all. It was easy to fall right back into place as if nearly thirty years hadn’t passed, as if some fucking evil alien magic clown hadn’t sealed their memories away. Now that he was writing his own material, it was easier to make Eddie laugh—not the _easiest_, (Eddie wasn’t _that_ easy) but he’s gotten better at it. They bump shoulders when they are side by side in the kitchen, when they’re out getting groceries, and when they have vicious games of _slug bug _in the car. Richie thinks about Eddie’s laugh; sometimes high pitched, and sometimes he’ll snort if something’s really funny, and he thinks of the way his eyes squeeze shut and the way he’ll occasionally cover his eyes with his hand while laughing.

_However far away…_

“Oh,” Richie says to no one in particular. His chest feels tight, and he wants to think he doesn’t know what this emotion is, but he does, _he does._ No matter how far away, through memories and distance and all what fucking happened to them, _it’s true. _He thinks about the nights he spent awake at twenty two years old, at twenty five, twenty seven, thirty, thirty five, six, seven, eight, _nine _years old, and he remembers how it felt, to have this weird empty feeling in his chest. Something belonged there; something (someone?) had already made a home there, in the veins and arteries of his heart, in the atriums and ventricles, in each little part of his heart. There was something there, lingering in the deepest, most darkest corner of his mind, always beyond reach, always taunting and teasing him with familiar smells of laundry detergent, a strangely nostalgic wheezing, an even stranger nostalgia at the _clack clack clack_ of an inhaler he heard in passing.

_I will always love you…_

There are tears in his eyes now. He blinks them away as best he can.

_However long I stay…_

Richie thinks about the Deadlights for the first time in a while and the scar on his forearm seems to burn in response. The Deadlights were harsh—poisoning your vision with lies and a cruelty that could be nothing but personal. Richie remembers what he saw before he saw Eddie die, over and over—it was a life, their life, what could have been, what would have been had they not been forced to forget. He saw them at twenty-one-two-something years old, fingers threaded, laughing in the car as they crossed Maine’s state line—he saw them at twenty-eight-nine-thirty-something years old, kissing just as heatedly as if it were their first, and he could have sworn he had seen a gold shine on their fingers, and then he was looking up at Eddie, hole in his chest, blood spattered everywhere, over and over and _fucking_ over again.

_I will always love you…_

_Whatever words I say…_

_I will always love you, I will always love you…_

Richie smiles so wide it hurts his face. He forces away the bad thoughts and focuses on the _now,_ and how they made it _here._ Richie clicks his screen off and slips it underneath his pillow before turning over to face Eddie again. He can’t help but think of the lyrics to the song repeatedly as he looks at Eddie’s sleeping face. _However far away, however long I stay._ Richie reaches out again and rests his palm against Eddie’s cheek, rubbing his thumb against the soft skin beneath his eye before taking his hand away. _I will always love you, I will always love you._

He leans in and kisses the corner of Eddie’s mouth before he leans back only to find Eddie’s eyes wide open.

“Your breath stinks, Richie.”

Richie laughs, effectively forcing Eddie to breathe in more of his morning breath. “Top of the mornin’ to ya too, Eds.”

Eddie groans, squeezing his eyes shut as he buries his face into the pillow. “Can’t you just say _good morning _like a normal person, asshole?” he mumbles, but he’s smiling as he says it.

Richie reaches out again, repeating his earlier action—palm to Eddie’s scarred cheek, thumb grazing the soft skin under his eye. It’s soft, and tender, and so incredibly heart wrenching that for a moment, all Richie can see is thirteen year old Eddie, sixteen year old Eddie, and forty year old Eddie all at once. He then finds that all he can do is offer up a lopsided grin, his eyes all but crinkling at the edges as he opens himself up to Eddie. And Eddie sees all of the love that he holds—Richie can tell this by the way Eddie’s eyes widen a bit; he can tell by the crinkle of Eddie’s eyebrows, by the way Eddie’s lips twist into a smile he’s trying to hide. Richie rubs at Eddie’s cheek absentmindedly, his lips still quirked into that crooked grin as he says, “Good morning, Eds.”

“Yeah,” Eddie sighs. He closes his eyes, content and warm and full of an endless stream of love. He lifts a hand and covers the back of Richie’s hand with his own. It’s silent for a moment—the only sounds being their breathing and the shifting of the sheets. Eddie curls his fingers against Richie’s hand and brings it to his lips. “It… really is a good morning, isn’t it,” he says, and kisses the palm of Richie’s hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! until next time ! ♥

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! hope you enjoyed<3


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